20 THE IMAGE OF WAR 



quarry busily about the thick stuff. So you are not 

 surprised, on hearing a cough, to look round and find 

 the bulk of the field silently waiting behind you. Not 

 the men these to spoil their own sport. 



Just then a magnificent dog - fox goes away not 

 two-score yards in front of you. All are silent until 

 he has disappeared through the next fence, and then 

 a cheery "tally-ho" bursts from nearly every one. 

 But the pack requires no assistance, for they are close 

 at his heels, and like a waterfall they pour out of 

 covert, under, over, and through the fence. A slight 

 swing, a hover, and they are away ! Master and man 

 come pounding along on opposite sides of the spinney, 

 forrard-awaying at the top of their voices. But the 

 pace seems to us rather too good for politeness, and 

 we are off before they reach us, making the best of 

 our way to the place in the first fence — a big hairy 

 one — we picked a couple of minutes ago. 



• •••*•• 



Good as the pace was when they first left the 

 covert, the mixed pack has kept it up for twenty 

 good minutes, and the field is considerably reduced. 

 We have been lucky enough to keep our place ; to 

 our left is a local doctor, riding, as doctors gener- 

 ally do, as if they could set their own bones. Will 

 is about a field behind, but, as we know, he got 

 all the worst of the start, and between him and us 

 is a young horse-dealing farmer, on something that 

 looks rather like a thoroughbred. A few more men 

 are descending the slope we have just left behind, 

 but they are riding to us rather than to hounds. 

 This is the bottom. A complication of muddy, 

 swampy stream, with rotten banks, ragged alders, 

 half-broken rails, and a piece of chain to keep cattle 



