“I never said a word!” answered Isaac; “people may believe their own eyes. Mr. Tiptop and I, we tried ’un this very morning again Chance; and though she’s the best in the town, we beat her by more than a length.” “Marathon beat that mare!” exclaimed Mr. Sawyer, now completely taken aback. “What _do_ you mean?” Old Isaac’s features were distorted once more into the mahogany grin. “Well, if Marathon didn’t, Jack did,” said he quietly. “You couldn’t tell one from the other in their clothing when it’s dark, and the Dandy would win the Derby if it wasn’t over half-a-mile.” It was too true: though the smart little nag never could stay a mile at a racing pace in his best days, he was as quick on his legs as a rabbit, and nothing could touch him, for five furlongs. Swaddled up in his clothes under the dubious twilight of a winter’s morning, Mr. Tiptop never suspected him, and went home with the conviction that Marathon, and none other, was the horse that had beaten his favourite. Mr. Sawyer laughed to himself as he rode Jack very gingerly on to Barkby. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XVI RIDING TO SELL IF Mr. Sawyer had kept a hunting journal (which he didn’t) he would have noted down the meet at Barkby, as one of those gorgeous spectacles, which makes an ineffaceable impression on the eye of the unpractised beholder. There appeared to be more hounds, more horses, more servants, more carriages, and altogether a larger staff and retinue attached to the establishment, than he had ever hitherto seen paraded for the purpose of killing a fox. Nevertheless, with all this show, there was no mistake about the workmanlike tendency of the turn-out. If the pack was numerous, it was also exceedingly level and in faultless condition; the huntsman and whips looked as if they must have been born and bred for the especial offices they respectively filled, and the second-horse men, notwithstanding their number, appeared to be all cut from the same pattern. As for the hunters, Mr. Sawyer would have wished no better luck than to ride the worst of them at a hundred and fifty guineas. One magnificent bay with a side-saddle, destined, no doubt, to carry a beautiful and precious burden, quite put him out of conceit with Hotspur and the grey. As for Marathon! why he would never have got on him, in such company, had not the pleasing reflection crossed his mind, that perhaps to-day he should get rid of the brute altogether.