wer of seeing the fox through a stone wall or a hill could only be
equalled by the Roentgen rays. We fought our way through the oak wood,
and out over a boggy bounds ditch into open country at last. The Rioters
had come out of the wood on a screaming scent, and big and little were
running together in a compact body, followed, like the tail of a kite,
by a string of yapping country curs. The country was all grass,
enchantingly green and springy; the jumps were big, yet not too big,
and there were no two alike; the filly pulled hard, but not too hard,
and she was jumping like a deer; I felt that all I had heard of Irish
hunting had not been overstated.

We had been running for half an hour when we checked at a farmhouse; the
yellow horse had been leading the hunt all the time, making a noise like
a steam-engine, but perfectly undefeated, and our numbers were reduced
to five. An old woman and a girl rushed out of the yard to meet us,
screaming like sea-gulls.

"He's gone south this five minutes! I was out spreadin' clothes, and I
seen him circling round the Kerry cow, and he as big as a man!" screamed
the girl.

"He was, the thief!" yelled the old woman. "I seen him firsht on the
hill, cringeing behind a rock, and he hardly able to thrail the tail
afther him!"

"Run now, like a good girl, and show me where did he cross the fence,"
said old Robert, puffing and blowing, as with a purple face he hurried
into the yard to collect the hounds, who, like practised foragers, had
already overrun the farmhouse, as was evidenced by an indignant and
shrieking flight of fowls through the open door.

The girl ran, snatching off her red plaid shawl as she went.

"Here's the shpot now!" she called out, flinging the shawl down on the
fence; "here's the very way just that he wint! Go south to the gap; I'll
pull the pole out for ye--this is a cross place."

The hunt gratefully accepted her good offices. She tore the monstrous
shaft of a cart out of a place that with it was impossible, and without
it was a boggy scramble, and as we began to gallop again, I began to
think there was a good deal to be said in favour of the New Woman.

I suppose we had had another quarter of an hour, when the mist, that had
been hanging about all day, came down on us, and it was difficult to see
more than a field ahead. We had got down on to lower ground, and we were
in a sort of marshy hollow when we were confronted by the most serious
obstacle of the da