For that night I was housed in my old home, and the following day again conducted to the kennel. “I wouldn’t have lost him for the whole entry,” said Will Sykes, receiving me with a warm welcome. “I can’t think,” continued he, turning to the second whip, who, I thought, regarded me with rather a savage expression, “how you let ’em get away.” “I’ve told ye twenty times already,” replied Ned Adams, in a tone and manner portraying his humour, “that the devil himself couldn’t get to their heads. I did my best, and, like many o’ my betters, was beaten.” “Well, well!” rejoined the huntsman with glee, “it’s the first time that I ever heard of a whipper-in not being able to stop a puppy, cub-hunting. Ha, ha, ha.” “It was Trimbush, and not him,” returned the irate Ned. “Oh!” added Will Sykes, “It was Trimbush, eh? It wasn’t worth while then, I suppose, to get to the head of one without the other, and yet, if I am told rightly, it would have been a difficult job to have separated them.” The second whip was evidently chafed at this bantering, and turned away with a flushed cheek, and a tongue muttering anything but his prayers. Upon entering the kennel again, all my companions came round me, and each, in turn, licked my torn ears and eyes, and were as kind and friendly as if I had been a brother to each. “I am glad to see you back again,” observed Trimbush, raising himself from a corner of the court, and stretching his limbs. “I began to think some danger had befallen ye.” “No thanks to you for having escaped it,” replied I, somewhat sharply. “Oh!” rejoined the old hound, carelessly: “in a run it’s every hound for himself, and a kick for the hindmost. There’s no consideration then.” “What did you do with the varmint?” inquired I, anxious to learn the result of our hunt. “Within five minutes of tailing you off,” replied he, “I ran him from scent to view; and if he had not gone to ground, I’d have broken him up without any sharers in the feast. As it was,” he continued, “he was so hot and beaten that he couldn’t lie more than a few inches from the mouth of the earth; and there we remained, with our red rags out, panting and grinning at each other for hours. Now and then I had a scratching dig for him; but finding that I could make no progress for the roots, left at last reluctantly, and pointed for home, where I arrived when the stars were twinkling.” “Did you see Ned Adams upon your return?” I inquired. “No,” replied Trimbush. “Mark, the feeder, was waiting for me, knowing that I should be back in the course of the night, let the distance be ever so great; and the good old fellow examined my feet and gave me a good supper, without the least show of bad temper for having kept him from bed.” “The second whip would not have treated ye so,” I observed. “Perhaps not,” returned he. “You mustn’t suppose, however, that Ned bears any malice. He might feel vexed and chafed at not being able to obey orders, but he always lets bygones be bygones.”