Twice he has to be sent to the surface, faint and gasping for breath; but almost before his absence is detected, he is back again in the centre of the noble band. By 2 A.M. the first six of the imprisoned miners are found, badly burned, but still alive; and before the sun has risen the whole of the twenty-five are restored to their wives, with the exception of three, whose work in this world is finished for ever. Worn out as he is, Mr. Halston stops to comfort as best he can the fatherless and widow, and then Jerry carries him home. Men miss his kindly face at Fearndale on the Friday, but they know where he is, for the story of his heroism spreads far and wide; and when next he appears in the field, all press forward to do him honour. On the way to their first draw that day a fox jumps up in the open, and goes straight over Milston Brook. Tom has his hounds on the line in a crack, and before anyone has time to look round, three figures are seen sailing away over the grass on the far side of the water--Tom; Charles the First Whip, and, in front of all--the Parson. THE DOCTOR. "Never saw such weather or such a season in my life, Sir John. They tell us that 'a green winter makes a full churchyard,' but the saying doesn't hold good down here. Why, bless my heart, everybody's out hunting instead of being ill, and there's nothing for me to do at all." "Ah Doctor," replies the Master, laughing, "it's better for us than for you then; and yet, in the long run, if the truth was known, I expect you can score more kills than my hounds." A busy man is Edward Wilson, Esq., M.D., with an increasing practice necessitating the help of an assistant. Yet so devoted is he to hunting, that he thinks it a very hard case if he does not manage one day a-week with the hounds. As he rides up, the picture of robust health and the pink of neatness, one would scarcely imagine, as one listens to his chaffing about the weather and the paucity of patients, that he had had exactly two hours' sleep the night before, and was almost certain to find a message on his return home, calling him away some seven or eight miles, with the prospect of another nocturnal vigil. Yet such is the case. Yesterday afternoon, when he came back from his round, he had said to Thomas his coachman: "I shall manage a day to-morrow, Thomas; I don't think there is anything likely to happen, so have old Ladybird ready for me in the morning. They meet at Willowfield Lodge, and are certain to draw towards home." Just as he was going to bed, a groom from Lorton Towers came galloping into his yard with an urgent message "As 'ow Doctor wur wanted at once; Lady Slowboy's took bad;" and away he had to go to assist the future Lord Slowboy on his "first appearance on any stage."