Then they lunched, and smoked, and trotted about with an apparent acknowledgement that there wasn’t much to be done.  It was not right that they should expect much after so good a thing as they had had yesterday.  At half-past two Mr Spooner had been sent home by his Providence, and Mrs Spooner was calculating that she would be able to ride her horse again on the Tuesday.  When on a sudden the hounds were on a fox.  It turned out afterwards that Dick Rabbit had absolutely ridden him up among the stubble, and that the hounds had nearly killed him before he had gone a yard.  But the astute animal making the best use of his legs till he could get the advantage of the first ditch, ran, and crept, and jumped absolutely through the pack.  Then there was shouting, and yelling, and riding.  The men who were idly smoking threw away their cigars.  Those who were loitering at a distance lost their chance.  But the real sportsmen, always on the alert, always thinking of the business in hand, always mindful that there may be at any moment a fox just before the hounds, had a glorious opportunity of getting ‘well away’.  Among these no one was more intent, or, when the moment came, ‘better away’ than Mrs Spooner.

Silverbridge had been talking to her and had the full advantage of her care.  Tregear was riding behind with Lord Chiltern, who had been pressing him to come with his friend to Harrington.  As soon as the shouting was heard Chiltern was off like a rocket.  It was not only that he was anxious to ‘get well away’, but that a sense of duty compelled him to see how the thing was being done.  Old Fowler was certainly a little slow, and Dick Rabbit, with the true bloody-minded instinct of a whip, was a little apt to bustle a fox back into the covert.  And then, when a run commences with a fast rush, riders are apt to over-ride the hounds, and then the hounds will over-run the fox.  All of which has to be seen to by a Master who knows his business.

Tregear followed, and being mounted on a fast horse was soon as forward as a judicious rider would desire.  ’Now, Runks, don’t you press on and spoil it all,’ said Mrs Spooner to the hard-riding objectionable son of old Runks the vet from Rufford.  But young Runks did press on till the Master spoke a word.  The word shall not be repeated, but it was efficacious.

At that moment there had been a check,—­as there is generally after a short spurt, when fox, hounds, and horsemen get off together, and not always in the order in which they have been placed there.  There is too much bustle, and the pack becomes disconcerted.  But it enabled Fowler to get up, and by dint of growling at the men and conciliating his hounds, he soon picked up the scent.  ’If they’d all stand still for two minutes and be d-d to them,’ he muttered aloud to himself, ’they’d ’ave some’at to ride arter.  They might go then, and there’s some of ’em’d soon be nowhere.’