"He wasn't in the right one to-day," said the Squire. This was still a little loud. There was too much of that buoyancy which might have come from drink; but which, with the Squire, was the effect of that success for which he had been longing rather than hoping all his life. From Heckfield they trotted back to Barford Wood, the master resolving that he would draw his country in the manner he had proposed to himself in the morning. There was some little repining at this, partly because the distance was long, and partly because Barford Woods were too large to be popular. "Hunting is over for the day," said Jack Graham. To this view of the case the Squire, who had now changed his horse, objected greatly. "We shall find in Barford big wood as sure as the sun rises," said he. "Yes," said Jack, "and run into the little wood and back to the big wood, and so on till we hate every foot of the ground. I never knew anything from Barford Woods yet for which a donkey wasn't as good as a horse." The Squire again objected, and told the story of a run from Barford Woods twenty years ago which had taken them pretty nearly on to Ascot Heath. "Things have changed since that," said Jack Graham. "Very much for the better," said the Squire. Ralph was with him then, and still felt that his father was too loud. Whether he meant that hunting was better now than in the old days twenty years ago, or that things as regarded the Newton estate were better, was not explained; but all who heard him speak imagined that he was alluding to the latter subject. Drawing Barford Woods is a very different thing than drawing Barford Gorses. Anybody may see a fox found at the gorses who will simply take the trouble to be with the hounds when they go into the covert; but in the wood it becomes a great question with a sportsman whether he will stick to the pack or save his horse and loiter about till he hears that a fox has been found. The latter is certainly the commoner course, and perhaps the wiser. And even when the fox has been found it may be better for the expectant sportsman to loiter about till he breaks, giving some little attention to the part of the wood in which the work of hunting may be progressing. There are those who systematically stand still or roam about very slowly;--others, again, who ride and cease riding by spurts, just as they become weary or impatient;--and others who, with dogged perseverance, stick always to the track of the hounds. For years past the Squire was to have been found among the former and more prudent set of riders, but on this occasion he went gallantly through the thickest of the underwood, close at the huntsman's heels. "You'll find it rather nasty, Mr. Newton, among them brakes," Cox had said to him. But the Squire had answered that he hadn't got his Sunday face on, and had persevered.