The ladies in the carriage, with Lady Jocelyn and Andrew, watched them till they flowed one and all over the shoulder of the down.
'And who may the poor hunted animal be ?' inquired the Countess.
'George Uplift,' said Lady Jocelyn, pulling out her watch.

'I give him twenty minutes.' 'Providence speed him!' breathed the Countess, with secret fervour.
'Oh, he hasn't a chance,' said Lady Jocelyn.

'The squire keeps wretched beasts.' 'Is there not an attraction that will account for his hasty capture ?' said the Countess, looking tenderly at Miss Carrington, who sat a little straighter, and the Countess, hating manifestations of stiff-backedness, could not forbear adding: 'I am at war with my sympathies, which should be with the poor brute flying from his persecutors.' She was in a bitter state of trepidation, or she would have thought twice before she touched a nerve of the enamoured lady, as she knew she did in calling her swain a poor brute, and did again by pertinaciously pursuing: 'Does he then shun his captivity ?' 'Touching a nerve' is one of those unforgivable small offences which, in our civilized state, produce the social vendettas and dramas that, with savage nations, spring from the spilling of blood.

Instead of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, we demand a nerve for a nerve.

'Thou hast touched me where I am tender thee, too, will I touch.' Miss Carrington had been alarmed and hurt at the strange evasion of Mr.George; nor could she see the fun of his mimicry of the fox and his flight away from instead of into her neighbourhood.