At this juncture the note of the horn sounded very sweetly from across the shining ford of the river.  Hounds and riders came splashing up into the village street, the old man and his daughter were hustled to one side, and Mrs. Pat’s affability returned as she settled her extremely smart little person on Pilot’s curveting back, and was instantly aware that there was nothing present that could touch either of them in looks or quality.  Carnfother was at the extreme verge of the D——­ Hounds’ country; there were not more than about thirty riders out, and Mrs. Pat was not far wrong when she observed to Major Booth that there was not much class about them.  Of the four or five women who were of the field, but one wore a habit with any pretensions to conformity with the sacred laws of fashion, and its colour was a blue that, taken in connection with a red, brass-buttoned waistcoat, reminded the severe critic from Royal Meath of the head porter at the Shelburne Hotel.  So she informed Major Booth in one of the rare intervals permitted to her by Pilot for conversation.

“All right,” responded that gentleman, “you wait until you and that ramping brute of yours get up among the stone walls, and you’ll be jolly glad if she’ll call a cab for you and see you taken safe home.  I tell you what—­you won’t be able to see the way she goes.”

“Rubbish!” said Mrs. Pat, and, whether from sympathy or from a petulant touch of her heel, Pilot at this moment involved himself in so intricate a series of plunges and bucks as to preclude further discussion.

The first covert—­a small wood on the flank of a hill—­was blank, and the hounds moved on across country to the next draw.  It was a land of pasture, and in every fence was a deep muddy passage, through which the field splashed in single file with the grave stolidity of the cows by whom the gaps had been made.  Mrs. Pat was feeling horribly bored.  Her escort had joined himself to two of the ladies of the hunt, and though it was gratifying to observe that one wore a paste brooch in her tie and the other had an imitation cavalry bit and bridle, with a leather tassel hanging from her pony’s throat, these things lost their savour when she had no one with whom to make merry over them.  She had left her sandwiches in the dog-cart, her servant had mistaken whisky for sherry when he was filling her flask; the day had clouded over, and already one brief but furious shower had scourged the curl out of her dark fringe and made the reins slippery.

At last, however, a nice-looking gorse covert was reached, and the hounds threw themselves into it with promising alacrity.  Pilot steadied himself, and stood with pricked ears, giving an occasional snatch at his bit, and looking, as no one knew better than his rider, the very picture of a hunter, while he listened for the first note that should tell of a find.  He had not long to wait.  There came a thin little squeal from the middle of the covert, and a hound flung up out of the thicker gorse and began to run along a ridge of rock, with head down, and feathering stern.