124 A Run 



The master is going in a good place some distance to the 

 left, almost level with the leading hounds. Half the 

 field diverge to a gateway on the right, and old Tom 

 Maizeley, a sturdy farmer on a rough bay horse that 

 badly wants clipping, pauses for a moment, and then, 

 instead of following the fleeting throng, turns sharp 

 round and quietly trots away at right angles to the line 

 the hounds are running. Nor does he go alone, for some 

 score of hesitating men, who know quite well that 

 Maizeley has a reason for his proceeding, trust them- 

 selves to his guidance. 



The first fence is a thin, straggling hedge, with no 

 ditch, that horses may go through without a jump ; 

 though some of the more cautious spirits prefer the 

 gateway, which does not give their animal an excuse for 

 the displa}^ of superfluous energy, so that everyone gets 

 comfortably into the plough, across w^hich hounds are 

 running their hardest. Some score of the pursuers take 

 the next fence as they find it, but there is a ditch on the 

 landing side, and this with many means following over a 

 gap conveniently made by a tearing horse which got out 

 of hand, and getting too near the fence, carried part of 

 it away. So over a spreading pasture which delighls the 

 hearts of those who love a gallop. 



But stay ! all is not so smooth and easy as at first 

 sight it seemed. The pack disappears for a moment 

 beyond a slight rise in the ground with a corresponding 

 fall, and when the field is near enough to see how things 

 are going, a series of splashes and a check in the hounds' 

 pace show that a brook runs through the field. There 

 are no willows nor anything to mark it out at a distance, 

 and strangers to the country who do not like jumping 

 take a pull at their horses to see that they are not 



