"Bravo! You'll _never_ regret it. You must help us to fight the doctors: they mean well, some of them; but most of them are building up the palace of intemperance faster than we can pull it down. `The doctor ordered it;' that's an excuse with thousands to drown their souls in drink. I wonder if they'd swallow a shovelful of red hot coals if the doctor ordered it?" Summer had now given place to autumn; it was a bright September day when the above conversation took place. When Mr Tankardew rose to go, Mrs Franklin and Mary volunteered to accompany him a little way. So they went forth, and a sweet and pleasant sight it was, the hale, grey-haired veteran still full of fire, yet checking his steps to keep pace with the young girl's feebler tread: she, all gentleness and sober gladness, and her mother happy in the abiding trust of a believing heart. They passed out of the grounds across a lane thickly shaded by trees, whose foliage was beginning to change its summer hue for the gorgeous varieties of autumnal colouring. Then they followed a winding path that skirted a wide sea of wheat, which rose and fell in rustling waves, disclosing now and again bright dazzling gleams of the scarlet poppy. At the end of this field was a stile leading into the highroad to Hopeworth. Here they paused, and were just about to part, when the sound of a horse's feet in rapid but very irregular motion arrested their attention. The animal and his rider soon came into view, the latter evidently keeping his seat with difficulty. There was plainly a struggle of some kind going on between the brute and the _rational_ being who was mounted on him, and while drawing the reins tight with one hand, was belabouring the poor creature about the head most unmercifully with a heavy hunting whip. The horse not appreciating the advantages of this treatment at the hands of its _intellectual_ owner, was resisting by a shuffling, remonstrating sort of gallop; while his rider, who was evidently a practised horseman, seemed to stick to his saddle by a kind of instinct, having little else to guide him, for his hat was completely shaken down over his eyes. Mr Tankardew's indignation was kindled in a moment. "The wretch! The drunken beast!" he cried; "serve him right if his horse pitches him head foremost into the first ditch with any dirty water in it." On came the contending pair, the man swaying from side to side, but nevertheless marvellously retaining his seat. At the sight of the ladies, or at a sudden movement forward of Mr Tankardew, the animal swerved and almost unseated his tormentor, who, however, recovered himself, but in doing so lost his hat, as the poor beast again plunged forward with his almost unconscious burden. The horseman took no notice of his loss, nor did he see who were the spectators of his sinful degradation, but to them he was fully revealed: it was Mark Rothwell. Another minute and he was out of sight.