* * * * *

The afternoon was very cold, a fact thoroughly realised by Mrs. Alexander, on the front seat of Sir George’s motor-car, in spite of enveloping furs, and of Bismarck, curled like a fried whiting, in her lap.  The grey road rushed smoothly backwards under the broad tyres; golden and green plover whistled in the quiet fields, starlings and huge missel thrushes burst from the wayside trees as the “Bollee,” uttering that hungry whine that indicates the desire of such creatures to devour space, tore past.  Mrs. Alexander wondered if birds’ beaks felt as cold as her nose after they had been cleaving the air for an afternoon; at all events, she reflected, they had not the consolation of tea to look forward to.  Barnet was sure to have some of her best hot cakes ready for Freddy when he came home from hunting.  Mrs. Alexander and Sir George had been scouring the roads since a very early lunch in search of the hounds, and her mind reposed on the thought of the hot cakes.

The front lodge gates stood wide open, the motor-car curved its flight and skimmed through.  Half-way up the avenue they whizzed past three policemen, one of whom was carrying on his back a strange and wormlike thing.

“Janet,” called out Sir George, “you’ve been caught making potheen!  They’ve got the worm of a still there.”

“They’re only making a short cut through the place from the bog; I’m delighted they’ve found it!” screamed back Mrs. Alexander.

The “Bollee” was at the hall door in another minute, and the mistress of the house pulled the bell with numbed fingers.  There was no response.

“Better go round to the kitchen,” suggested her brother.  “You’ll find they’re talking too hard to hear the bell.”

His sister took the advice, and a few minutes afterwards she opened the hall door with an extremely perturbed countenance.

“I can’t find a creature anywhere,” she said, “either upstairs or down—­I can’t understand Barnet leaving the house empty—­”

“Listen!” interrupted Sir George, “isn’t that the hounds?”

They listened.

“They’re hunting down by the back avenue! come on, Janet!”

The motor-car took to flight again; it sped, soft-footed, through the twilight gloom of the back avenue, while a disjointed, travelling clamour of hounds came nearer and nearer through the woods.  The motor-car was within a hundred yards of the back lodge, when out of the rhododendron-bush burst a spectral black-and-white dog, with floating fringes of ragged wool and hideous bald patches on its back.

“Fennessy’s dog!” ejaculated Mrs. Alexander, falling back in her seat.