red-brown gables of a queer old house, at that instant I saw the fox
scarcely heading by fifty yards. We blundered through a wood into full
sight of the house, but no avenue led up to it or even a path nor were
there any signs of wheel-marks anywhere. Already lights shone here and
there in windows. We were in a park, and a fine park, but unkempt
beyond credibility; brambles grew everywhere. It was too dark to see
the fox any more but we knew he was dead beat, the hounds were just
before us,--and a four-foot railing of oak. I shouldn't have tried it
on a fresh horse the beginning of a run, and here was a horse near his
last gasp. But what a run! an event standing out in a lifetime, and
the hounds close up on their fox, slipping into the darkness as I
hesitated. I decided to try it. My horse rose about eight inches and
took it fair with his breast, and the oak log flew into handfuls of
wet decay--it rotten with years. And then we were on a lawn and at the
far end of it the hounds were tumbling over their fox. Fox, hounds and
light were all done together at the of a twenty-mile point. We made
some noise then, but nobody came out of the queer old house.

I felt pretty stiff as I walked round to the hall door with the mask
and the brush while James went with the hounds and the two horses to
look for the stables. I rang a bell marvellously encrusted with rust,
and after a long while the door opened a little way revealing a hall
with much old armour in it and the shabbiest butler that I have ever
known.

I asked him who lived there. Sir Richard Arlen. I explained that my
horse could go no further that night and that I wished to ask Sir
Richard Arlen for a bed for the night.

"O, no one ever comes here, sir," said the butler.

I pointed out that I had come.

"I don't think it would be possible, sir," he said.

This annoyed me and I asked to see Sir Richard, and insisted until he
came. Then I apologised and explained the situation. He looked only
fifty, but a 'Varsity oar on the wall with the date of the early
seventies, made him older than that; his face had something of the shy
look of the hermit; he regretted that he had not room to put me up. I
was sure that this was untrue, also I had to be put up there, there
was nowhere else within miles, so I almost insisted. Then to my
astonishment he turned to the butler and they talked it over in an
undertone. At last they seemed to think that they could manage it,
though clea