“But never a glimpse did they get of the fox, although they knew very well that he must be only a very short way ahead for the scent to be so strong.  And then Wat Danbury heard a crash and a thud at his elbow, and looking round he saw a pair of white cords and top-boots kicking out of a tussock of brambles.  The whip’s horse had stumbled, and the whip was out of the running.  Danbury and the huntsman eased down for an instant; and then, seeing the man staggering to his feet all right, they turned and settled into their saddles once more.

“Joe Clarke, the huntsman, was a famous old rider, known for five counties round; but he reckoned upon his second horse, and the second horses had all been left many miles behind.  However, the one he was riding was good enough for anything with such a horseman upon his back, and he was going as well as when he started.  As to Wat Danbury, he was going better.  With every stride his own feelings improved, and the mind of the rider had its influence upon the mind of the horse.  The stout little roan was gathering its muscular limbs under it, and stretching to the gallop as if it were steel and whale-bone instead of flesh and blood.  Wat had never come to the end of its powers yet, and to-day he had such a chance of testing them as he had never had before.

“There was a pasture country beyond the heather slopes, and for several miles the two riders were either losing ground as they fumbled with their crop-handles at the bars of gates, or gaining it again as they galloped over the fields.  Those were the days before this accursed wire came into the country, and you could generally break a hedge where you could not fly it, so they did not trouble the gates more than they could help.  Then they were down in a hard lane, where they had to slacken their pace, and through a farm where a man came shouting excitedly after them; but they had no time to stop and listen to him, for the hounds were on some ploughland, only two fields ahead.  It was sloping upwards, that ploughland, and the horses were over their fetlocks in the red, soft soil.

“When they reached the top they were blowing badly, but a grand valley sloped before them, leading up to the open country of the South Downs.  Between, there lay a belt of pine-woods, into which the hounds were streaming, running now in a long, straggling line, and shedding one here and one there as they ran.  You could see the white-and-tan dots here and there where the limpers were tailing away.  But half the pack were still going well, though the pace and distance had both been tremendous—­two clear hours now without a check.

“There was a drive through the pine-wood—­one of those green, slightly rutted drives where a horse can get the last yard out of itself, for the ground is hard enough to give him clean going and yet springy enough to help him.  Wat Danbury got alongside of the huntsman and they galloped together with their stirrup-irons touching, and the hounds within a hundred yards of them.