My friend was a good pilot. I must do him the justice to admit that quality. He seemed to know every gate and lane in the country, also to possess an intuitive knowledge of the run of a fox, with a staunch predilection for keeping down wind. I did not despair of coming up with the chase once more, and truth to tell I was not without hopes that to-day my curiosity might be satisfied with a view of Miss Merlin. “The Jovial,” on the other hand, had become preoccupied and restless. No longer dispensing his quaint sallies and florid parables in my ear, he gave his whole attention to Crafty Kate, an arrangement to which I should have been the last person on earth to object; and although he drove that game and resolute animal with merciless rapidity, it was in a style considerably less random than before. Perhaps the influence of the brandy had died out; perhaps he felt the depression that always succeeds the excitement of seeing hounds, when it has evaporated. Perhaps he was thinking of his dinner, perhaps of the rat-catching he had missed, perhaps of Miss Merlin. We drove on for at least two miles without speaking. In justice to my friend’s humanity, I am bound to observe that we had long ago taken pity on Brimstone, and hoisted him into the cart, where he lay coiled up under my legs, sniffing them ominously from time to time, as if only deterred by considerations of the merest politeness from taking a bite out of them at the most sensitive place. I dreaded lest a jolt severer than common should be construed by this amiable animal into a personal insult to himself.