68 RACECOUESE AND COVERT SIDE. 



wrong. I'm not going to chance it again ' ? 

 Look there ! What a fool the fellow is ! " 



Sutcliffe's exclamation was drawn from him 

 when Dairymaid, apparently awakening to the 

 truth that some one ought to make a move, had 

 trotted up to the now irate Toppler, and had 

 been rewarded for her obedience by a cut from 

 his whip, which quickly sent her back to her 

 companions. 



At length hounds were coaxed and driven 

 into covert, but either there was no fox there 

 or they could not find him, so after a tedious 

 delay and a wrangle as to where it would be 

 best to try next, we trotted off to a spinney 

 about a mile away, where no better luck awaited 

 us. Hyde was happy enough with Lucy Poult, 

 and Sutcliffe's keen sense of the ludicrous kept 

 him amused. I found it extremely dull, how- 

 ever, and in the course of a third move, finding 

 myself in the neighbourhood of my friend the 

 commodore's house, I turned my horse's head 

 and trotted off to look him up, with a view 

 to some lunch. 



Many comic incidents that had taken place 

 with Poult's hounds were related as we strolled 

 out for a cigarette afterwards, and I never 

 expected to see the willing and well-bred, but 

 misdirected, creatures again, which only shows 



