“Faith, ’tis thrue for you,” corroborated Dan Murphy.  “If ye had thim gethered in a quarther of ground and dhropped a pin from th’ elements, ‘twould reach one o’ thim!”

(As a matter of fact, I haven’t a notion what Mr. Murphy meant, but that is what he said, so I faithfully record it.)

The riders were farmers and men of Robert’s own undetermined class, and there was hardly a horse out who was more than four years old, saving two or three who were nineteen.  Robert pushed through them and turned up a bohireen—­i.e., a narrow and incredibly badly made lane—­and I presently heard him cheering the hounds into covert.  As to that covert, imagine a hill that in any civilised country would be called a mountain:  its nearer side a cliff, with just enough slope to give root-hold to giant furze bushes, its summit a series of rocky and boggy terraces, trending down at one end into a ravine, and at the other becoming merged in the depths of an aboriginal wood of low scrubby oak trees.  It seemed as feasible to ride a horse over it as over the roof of York Minster.  I hadn’t the vaguest idea what to do or where to go, and I clave to Jerry the Whip.

The hounds were scrambling like monkeys along the side of the hill; so were the country boys with their curs; old Trinder moved parallel with them along its base.  Jerry galloped away to the ravine, and there dismounting, struggled up by zig-zag cattle paths to the comparative levels of the summit.  I did the same, and was pretty well blown by the time I got to the top, as the filly scorned the zigzags, and hauled me up as straight as she could go over the rocks and furze bushes.  A few other fellows had followed us, and we all pursued on along the top of the hill.

Suddenly Jerry stopped short and held up his hand.  A hound spoke below us, then another, and then came a halloa from Jerry that made the filly quiver all over.  The fox had come up over the low fence that edged the cliff, and was running along the terrace in front of us.  Old Robert below us—­I could almost have chucked a stone on to him—­gave an answering screech, and one by one the hounds fought their way up over the fence and went away on the line, throwing their tongues in a style that did one good to hear.  Our only way ahead lay along a species of trench between the hill, on whose steep side we were standing, and the cliff fence.  Jerry kicked the spurs into his good ugly little horse, and making him jump down into the trench, squeezed along it after the hounds.  But the delay of waiting for them had got the filly’s temper up.  When I faced her at the trench she reared, and whirled round, and pranced backwards in, considering the circumstances, a highly discomposing way.  The rest of the field crowded through the furze past me and down into the trench, and twice I thought the mare would land herself and me on top of one of them.  I don’t wonder she was frightened.  I know I was.  There was nothing between us and a hundred-foot drop but