He had ridden The Dandy very leisurely to covert, in consideration of the animal’s services before dawn, and had sent on the grey with an occasional helper from the inn, under the superintendence of The Boy, who was perched on Marathon: old Isaac, who wanted to buy some hay cheap, having given himself leave of absence for the day. The helper, with many injunctions to go steadily, was entrusted with the homeward-bound hack; and The Boy shifted to the second horse, whilst Mr. Sawyer himself bestrode the redoubtable bay. All these arrangements, with the accompanying pulling up of curb-chains and letting down of stirrup-leathers, took some little time. Before our friend was fairly mounted and under way, the hounds had gone on to draw, and he found himself nearly the last of the lengthening cavalcade. Under existing circumstances this was no great disadvantage, and the quieter he kept the bay, he thought, the better was his chance of selling him; yet he could not help wishing old Isaac had left the whole business alone. He might then have been forward with the hounds, looking out for a start on whichever horse he liked best, uninfluenced—as a man always should be, really to enjoy fox-hunting—by the sordid considerations of _£._ _s._ _d._ Marathon was very fresh, and set his back up, squeaking in a most undignified manner, and swishing his heavy tail, till it reached his rider’s hat. A horse galloping up from behind set him plunging with a violence that was scarcely pleasant, even to so practised a rider as our friend. He returned the greeting of the new comer—no less a personage than the Honourable Crasher, late as usual, and cantering to the front on Boadicea by Bellerophon out of Blue Light—with a preoccupied air of a man who expects every moment to be on his back. The Honourable, slightly amused, pulled up alongside. “Halloa, Sawyer,” said he, “you’ll be hard to beat to-day: the steeple-chaser seems uncommon full of running.” “It’s only his play,” answered Mr. Sawyer, modestly; indulging Marathon, who was preparing for another kick, with a vicious jerk of the curb. “I can’t get my old groom to give him work enough, and he’s sent me a second horse out to-day.”