A FOXHUNT IN THE SOUTHERN HILLS 219 



picture, but in the happy rider's mind it is the glories 

 that remain, the times when hounds are storming on 

 tlie hne, carrying a head hke a flood in a river, and 

 liorses are pulhng hard on the down-grade, and no 

 man hving can predict the fox's point. 



This particular fox steered a good course, and, 

 crossing a grassy valley, bore away into moorland 

 again. The runners, hardy though they were, had 

 long since been beaten. The last heard of them was a 

 shout from Mikey-Dan. 



" It's into the say he's running, he's that much 

 afraid o' ye ! " 



But Mikey-Dan was mistaken. In the middle of 

 that desolate moor-country there stands a cliff that is 

 like a tremendous door, closing an entrance to the 

 heart of a hill. Old stories murmur about that mighty 

 door, but what is behind it, a dead King, a Cluricaun's 

 treasure, a Phuca, or a pathway to Fairyland, they 

 do not dare to tell. The door is not a good fit; there 

 is a space beneath it, hollowed out, one imagines, by 

 the stream that flees from those hidden mysteries. 

 The stories are afraid to tell us what they think is 

 there, but in the minds of the hounds there was no 

 uncertainty. They told us that the fox was there, 

 and they said it at the tops of their voices, and made 

 no secret about it. 



