But the Squire never rode a run better in his life. He gave a lead to the field, and he kept it. "I wouldn't 'a spoilt him by putting my nose afore 'is, were it ever so," said Cox afterwards. "He went as straight as a schoolboy at Christmas, and the young horse he rode never made a mistake. Let men say what they will, a young horse will carry a man a brush like that better than an old one. It was very short. They had run their fox, pulled him down, broken him up, and eaten him within half an hour. Jack Graham, who is particular about those things, and who was, at any rate, near enough to see it all, said that it was exactly twenty-two minutes and a half. He might be right enough in that, but when he swore that they had gone over four miles of ground, he was certainly wrong. They killed within a field of Heckfield church, and Heckfield church can't be four miles from Barford Gorse. That they went as straight as a line everybody knew. Besides, they couldn't have covered the ground in the time. The pace was good, no doubt; but Jacky Graham is always given to exaggeration."
The Squire was very proud of his performance, and, when Ralph came up, was loud in praise of the young horse. "Never was carried so well in my life,--never," said he. "I knew he was good, but I didn't know he would jump like that. I wouldn't take a couple of hundred for him." This was still a little loud; but the Squire at this moment had the sense of double triumph within, and was to be forgiven. It was admitted on all sides that he had ridden the run uncommonly well. "Just like a young man, by Jove," said Jack Graham. "Like what sort of a young man?" asked George Harris, who had come up at the heel of the hunt with Ralph.
"And where were you, Master Ralph?" said the Squire to his son.
"I fancy I just began to know they were running by the time you were killing your fox," said Ralph.
"You should have your eyes better about you, my boy; shouldn't he, Cox?"
"The young squire ain't often in the wrong box," said the huntsman.
"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.