cers from a
neighbouring town; a couple of old men, and a sprinkling of girls.
Philip Hardress was the only young man in plain clothes, and strangers
who did not suspect anything amiss with his leg looked at him
curiously.

"Look at that dear old thing!" he whispered to Norah, indicating a
prim maiden lady who had arrived on foot. "I know she's aching for a
chance to ask me why I'm not in khaki!" He grinned delightedly.
"She's rather like the old lady who met me in the train the other day,
and after looking at me sadly for a few minutes said, 'My dear young
man, do you not know that your King and Country want you?'"

"Phil! What did you say?"

"I said, 'Well, they've got one of my legs, and they don't seem to
have any use for the remnant!' I don't think she believed me, so I
invited her to prod it!" He chuckled at his grim joke. Three months
ago he had shrunk from any mention of his injury as from the lash of a
whip.

Mrs. Ainslie never wasted time. Two minutes' grace for any
laggards--which gave time for the arrival of a stout lady on a
weight-carrying cob--and then she moved on, and in a moment the hounds
were among the osiers, hidden except that now and then a waving stern
caught the eye. Occasionally there was a brief whimper, and once a
young hound gave tongue too soon, and was, presumably, rebuked by his
mother, and relapsed into hunting in shamed silence.

The osiers proved blank: they drew out, and went up the hill into the
covert, while the field moved along to be as close as possible, and
the followers on foot dodged about feverishly, hoping for luck that
would make a fox break their way. Too often the weary lot of the foot
contingent is to see nothing whatever after the hounds once enter
covert, since the fox is apt to leave it as unobtrusively as possible
at the far side, and to take as short a line as he can across country
to another refuse. To follow the hounds on foot needs a stout heart
and patience surpassing that of Job.

But those on horses know little of the blighting experiences of the
foot-plodders: and when Norah went a-hunting everything ceased to
exist for her except the white-and-black-and-tan hounds and the green
fields, and Brunette under her, as eager as she for the first
long-drawn-out note from the pack. They moved restlessly back and
forth along the hillside, the black pony dancing with impatience at
the faintest whimper from an unseen hound. Near them Killaloe set an