the petticoats for half an hour.”  So saying, Runciman broke into a gallop, and Larry’s mare doing the same, he soon passed the innkeeper and was up at the covert side just as Tony Tuppett with half a score of hounds round him, was forcing his way through the bushes, out of the coverts into the open field.  “There ain’t no poison this time, Mr. Twentyman,” said the huntsman, as, setting his eye on a gap in the further fence, he made his way across the field.

The fox headed away for a couple of miles towards Impington, as was the custom with the Dillsborough foxes, and then turning to the left was soon over the country borders into Ufford.  The pace from the first starting was very good.  Larry, under such provocation as that of course would ride, and he did ride.  Up as far as the country brook, many were well up.  The land was no longer deep; and as the field had not been scattered at the starting, all the men who usually rode were fairly well placed as they came to the brook; but it was acknowledged afterwards that Larry was over it the first.  Glomax got into it,—­as he always does into brooks, and young Runce hurt his horse’s shoulder at the opposite bank.  Lord Rufford’s horse balked it, to the Lord’s disgust; but took it afterwards, not losing very much ground.  Tony went in and out, the crafty old dog knowing the one bit of hard ground.  Then they crossed Purbeck field, as it is still called—­which twenty years since was a wide waste of land, but is now divided by new fences, very grievous to half-blown horses.  Sir John Purefoy got a nasty fall over some stiff timber, and here many a half-hearted rider turned to the right into the lane.  Hampton and his Lordship, and Battersby, with Fred Botsey and Larry, took it all as it came, but through it all not one of them could give Larry a lead.  Then there was manoeuvring into a wood and out of it again, and that saddest of all sights to the riding man, a cloud of horsemen on the road as well placed as though they had ridden the line throughout.  In getting out of the road Hampton’s horse slipped up with him, and, though he saw it all, he was never able again to compete for a place.  The fox went through the Hampton Wick coverts without hanging a moment, just throwing the hounds for two minutes off their scent at the gravel pits.  The check was very useful to Tony, who had got his second horse and came up sputtering, begging the field for G—­’s sake to be,—­in short to be anywhere but where they were.  Then they were off again down the hill to the left, through Mappy springs and along the top of Ilveston copse, every yard of which is grass, till the number began to be select.  At last in a turnip field, three yards from the fence, they turned him over, and Tony, as he jumped off his horse among the hounds, acknowledged to himself that Larry might have had his hand first upon the animal had he cared to do so.

“Twentyman, I’ll give you two hundred for your mare,” said Lord Rufford.