If I don't leave you at the back of Godspeed before long, I'll give you the mare and the horse too." The Honourable John was not known in Barsetshire as one of the most forward of its riders.

He was a man much addicted to hunting, as far as the get-up of the thing was concerned; he was great in boots and breeches; wondrously conversant with bits and bridles; he had quite a collection of saddles; and patronised every newest invention for carrying spare shoes, sandwiches, and flasks of sherry.

He was prominent at the cover side;--some people, including the master of hounds, thought him perhaps a little too loudly prominent; he affected a familiarity with the dogs, and was on speaking acquaintance with every man's horse.

But when the work was cut out, when the pace began to be sharp, when it behoved a man either to ride or visibly to decline to ride, then--so at least said they who had not the de Courcy interest quite closely at heart--then, in those heart-stirring moments, the Honourable John was too often found deficient.
There was, therefore, a considerable laugh at his expense when Frank, instigated to his innocent boast by a desire to save his father, challenged his cousin to a trial of prowess.

The Honourable John was not, perhaps, as much accustomed to the ready use of his tongue as was his honourable brother, seeing that it was not his annual business to depict the glories of the farmers' daughters; at any rate, on this occasion he seemed to be at some loss for words; he shut up, as the slang phrase goes, and made no further allusion to the necessity of supplying young Gresham with a proper string of hunters.
But the old squire had understood it all; had understood the meaning of his nephew's attack; had thoroughly understood also the meaning of his son's defence, and the feeling which actuated it.