AN AUTUMN GALLOP. 19 



may Tom ]\Iooiiey's ghost liaimt tlie fool on foot at tlie 

 corner ! Ah, but that shp back was only a rusn ; alrca'ly 

 they are screaming away at the end of the covert 

 opposite the village; and now you may kick in and out of 

 the rough ridge-and-furrow as fast as you can. By virtue 

 of habit the timekeepers dive at their fobs. " One-thirty 

 by my old clock, anything you like by the time — l)ut help 

 me remember one-thirty." 



" A moment, one moment, please gentlemen ! " — and 

 the ladies come bundling out, among and beliind the 

 little throng that has whisked all too hastily round to the 

 holloa. Twenty yards from the covert is a tall thorn 

 fence, still bearing, in gorgeous red and faded green, the 

 full foliage of summer. In a second or two every hound 

 has dived noisily through the gaudy screen ; and the 

 music moves lustily on — but whither the pack may be 

 pointing is a matter of vaguest guess. The lengthy and 

 impenetrable curtain must be outflanked one way or the 

 other. Please yourself whether you gallop back or 

 gallop on. Choosing onward, you will reach the Gad- 

 desby road, and cut off the pack if it bends to the right. 

 Slip back and you make it safe should it turn to the left. 

 Firr, with a trusting majority after him, takes the latter 

 course. Supposing you are for once misguided enough 

 to put more faith in your own instinct than in that of the 

 huntsman, you soon find yourself hammering the road, 

 with the invisible chorus gradually waxing fainter — 

 wdiile the stroke of your gallop and the beat of your own 

 heart grow faster and f\ister. Leftward they've turned, 

 by all that's brief in life and deceptive in hope ! Easy 



