A Run 135 



them have jumped a twig the whole day, yet here they 

 are, as w^ell up as those who have been hard at it over a 

 really difficult line of country. Of course now and then 

 Maizeley is WTong, and if so, he will probably see no 

 more of hounds that day ; but often he is right, and sees a 

 great deal of them. He has all the best of it to-day, for 

 hounds bend towards him, run down the lane, and 

 scramble through a. fence into a meadow which begins 

 the gradual rise towards High Elm Gorse. The earth is 

 stopped, the master has assured his friends, so that, 

 though horses' flanks are beginning to heave quickly and 

 their nostrils to expand, things look w^ell ; for the Gorse 

 is now scarcely a mile in front, and though it is up a 

 slight incline that hounds are racing for the lead, it is all 

 grass, fences are easy, and gates plentiful. 



' There he goes ! ' presently sings out young Maizeley, 

 whose sharp eye sees the good fox a couple of fields 

 ahead, and the pack, as if they understood the words, 

 crash through the next fence and go at a pace which 

 tests the horses severely. Sylvanson is well up ; the 

 lady is half-a-dozen lengths behind him; a boy on a 

 dun- coloured pony, sprung from no one knows where, is 

 close at hand ; master and servants are in their places, 

 but the field straggles over a wide expanse of country. 

 One man is placidly sitting on a gate, watching his horse 

 career about the field with dragging reins ; the rear rank 

 is reduced to a walk ; others are trotting ; and in few cases 

 is the gallop much more than a canter. Into the last 

 field before the covert is reached hounds dash before the 

 fox is through the fence beyond ; Eanger catches view, 

 and proclaims the tidings with a cry of delight. The 

 poor fox, game beast that he is, is travelling slowly with 

 dragging brush, little thinking that when he reaches the 



