MISS BADSWORTH, M.F.H. 251 



runner ; he carried no flesh, and the gin and beer he had im- 

 bibed speedily evaporated ; moreover the prospect of an extra 

 sovereign if he reached the before-mentioned river at a certain 

 place and made himself scarce, stimulated his efforts, so that 

 by the time he had been going an hour he had put some few 

 miles between himself and the Ashbed. 



There were, however, two good miles of country to be 

 crossed before he reached his goal, so he came to the conclu- 

 sion that the best thing he could do was to make a check, 

 and the Berrington brickfields seemed a suitable spot. Half 

 a mile on, the old, blackened, disused kilns showed out on the 

 rising ground, with here and there a ruined cottage or dilapi- 

 dated shed. "Just the place a fox 'ed get in," he said, "and 

 by the time they finds he ain't there and makes a cast I shall 

 have done my job." 



The brickyard, which had been disused for several years, 

 was still strongly fenced. There were pits and excavations 

 of varied character ; portions of an old tramway ; long lines of 

 little wood-covered shelters, where the fresh-made bricks had 

 been dried, all in various stages of decay; deeply-rutted 

 tracks ; and, moreover, above each spot where coarse vegeta- 

 tion could take a hold, rough grass and gigantic docks. 

 Trailing the drag behind him Bill made for the larger of the 

 two kilns ; he would make believe that the quarry had got 

 in behind the ruined brickwork. He forced his way through 

 docks and nettles waist high and more till suddenly there 

 was a sound of breaking boards, and then he disappeared. 



• ••••«•••* 



Now the Ashbed was a long narrow covert bisected from 

 end to end by a boggy swamp impassable on horseback. 

 The lower side was comparatively flat, the other sloped 

 upwards till it terminated in a steep wooded bank. 



Joe Summers, her father and experience had taught Lavvy 

 that hounds draw upwards on a slope, so she entered the 

 wood at the lower side, whilst Ned Barlow rode round to get 

 forward at the top. 



Scarcely had the girl watched the hounds spread them- 



