THE OLD PACK 37 



along on opposite sides of the spinny, 

 forrardawaying 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 generally do, 

 as if they could set their own bones. Will 

 is about a held 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 



