16 MELTON AND HOMESPUN 



" It seemed hours that I stared with aching eyes that 

 I dared not blink at the end of the ride where the Thing 

 must appear. 



" What I saw burnt into my brain. 



" Out of the wood came Pride of Tyrone ! 



" Pride of Tyrone, white with lather, eyes wild and 

 nostrils distended. The bit was pressing on his mouth; 

 the reins extended stiffly back from the bit to empty air 

 above the withers. They were held in a grasp, and they 

 were held by nothing I 



" And from the empty air above the saddle, from on 

 a level with my own head, pealed and cheered that clarion 

 voice. 



" Pride of Tyrone passed close by me : I could have 

 touched him. And as he passed a sense of unutterable, 

 nameless horror and doom swept over me. And the 

 voice blared like a trumpet right in my ear : ' For-ard. 

 A wa-ay ! ' 



" Blind with terror, I drove the spurs into my horse 

 and rode for my life. 



" My recollection of the journey home is a blurred 

 jumble of furious galloping and weary leading of a 

 foundered horse. 



" Next morning I went to the kennels. I found the 

 huntsman, scared and shaken, big with news. After the 

 fall his horse was dead lame, and as he could not hear a 

 sound of the hounds he went home. It was after nine 

 o'clock when he got to the kennels; the whips were 

 already there, having collected four and a half couple of 

 lost hounds all new hounds of Furlong's. Of the rest 

 of the eighteen couple taken out in the morning there was 

 not a trace. 



