the stables and saw the horses; and then the master of the hounds and a good many other gentlemen in red coats, in all sorts of traps, rode up, and their hunters were saddled, and the dogs barked and the men cracked their whips to keep them together, and there was a bustle and liveliness to a degree I can’t write about, and Jone and I never thought about going in to breakfast until all those horses, some led and some ridden, and the men and the hounds, and even the dust from their feet, had disappeared.

I wanted to go see the hunt start off, but Mr. Poplington said it was two or three miles distant, and out of our way, and that we’d better move on as soon as possible so as to reach Chedcombe that night; but he was glad, he said, that we had had a chance to see the hounds and the horses.

As for himself, I could see he was a little down in the mouth, for he said he was very fond of hunting, and that if he had known of this meet he would have been there with a horse and his hunting clothes.  I think he hoped somebody would lend him a horse, but nobody did, and not being able to hunt himself he disliked seeing other people doing what he could not.  Of course, Jone and me could not go to the hunt by ourselves, so after we’d had our tea and toast and bacon we started off.  I will say here that when I was at the Ship Inn I had tea for my breakfast, for I couldn’t bring my mind to order coffee—­a drink the Saxons must never have heard of—­in such a place; and since that we have been drinking it because Jone said there was no use fighting against established drinks, and that anyway he thought good tea was better than bad coffee.

Letter Number Twelve

CHEDCOMBE

As I said in my last letter, we started out for Chedcombe, not abreast, as we had been before, but strung along the road, and me and Mr. Poplington pretty doleful, being disappointed and not wanting to talk.  But as for Jone, he seemed livelier than ever, and whistled a lot of tunes he didn’t know.  I think it always makes him lively to get rid of seeing sights.  The sun was shining brightly, and there was no reason to expect rain for two or three hours anyway, and the country we passed through was so fine, with hardly any houses, and with great hills and woods, and sometimes valleys far below the road, with streams rushing and bubbling, that after a while I began to feel better, and I pricked up my tricycle, and, of course, being followed by Jone, we left Mr. Poplington, whose melancholy seemed to have gotten into his legs, a good way behind.

We must have travelled two or three hours when all of a sudden I heard a noise afar, and I drew up and listened.  The noise was the barking of dogs, and it seemed to come from a piece of woods on the other side of the field which lay to the right of the road.  The next instant something shot out from under the trees and began going over the field in ten-foot hops.  I sat staring without understanding, but when I saw a lot of brown and white spots bounce out of the wood, and saw, a long way back in the open field, two red-coated men on horseback, the truth flashed upon me that this was the hunt.  The creature in front was the stag, who had chosen to come this way, and the dogs and the horses was after him, and I was here to see it all.