CHAPTER VI. 



A SHARP BURST AND A HARD RUN. 



The first sound tliat met Fairfax's ear, as he landed 

 well over the fence into the second field, was a wild 

 or J, half curse and half cheer ; and a loud crash in- 

 stantly succeeded it, as yet another rider plunged 

 through the abattis of branches offered by the bullfinch, 

 and spurring up savagely alongside half checked a fine 

 black Smolensko horse, equal to double his weight, a few 

 yards ahead of '' Moonbeam." It was Lord Jardinier, 

 who, by aid of the lift he got in his friend's phaeton, 

 had come up to the ground just in time to hear Osbal- 

 diston's scream, as "pug" was viewed away, had 

 sprung to his hunter's back, and seeing of whom the 

 group at the northern end of the gorse covert con- 

 sisted, had made up his mind on the instant what was 

 the thing to be done, and by dint of desperate riding 

 had done it, so as just to make up for lost way and 

 no more. 



The hounds were going heads up and sterns down, 

 never stooping for an instant to the tainted grass, but 

 taking the scent as it reeked up on the air hot from the 

 traces of the recent quarry, racing as it were in eager 

 emulation each against the other, and running all so 

 well together, with twelve or fourteen nearly abreast 

 in the front rank, that it seemed as if a well-spread 

 table-cloth might easily have covered them. 



The Squire and Jack Stevens, who had come full 



tilt through the gorse close at the tail of the leading 



hounds, had leaped into the field almost abreast of 



them, and were now bowling away a few yards more or 



(96\ 



