He got through the day as much (or as little) to his own satisfaction, as was to be expected under the fatiguing circumstances; and came riding back at six o’clock. There was a sweep of some half-mile between the lodge and the house, and he was riding along at a foot pace over the smooth gravel, once Nickits’s, when Mr. Bounderby burst out of the shrubbery, with such violence as to make his horse shy across the road.
‘ Harthouse!’ cried Mr. Bounderby. ‘Have you heard?’
‘ Heard what?’ said Harthouse, soothing his horse, and inwardly favouring Mr. Bounderby with no good wishes.
‘ Then you haven’t heard!’
‘ I have heard you, and so has this brute. I have heard nothing else.’
Mr. Bounderby, red and hot, planted himself in the centre of the path before the horse’s head, to explode h
