n hope for a run.

"When they came to the Black Hanger the field took their positions along
the cover-side wherever they thought that they were most likely to get a
good start. Some went in with the hounds, some clustered at the ends of
the drives, and some kept outside in the hope of the fox breaking in
that direction. Young Wat Danbury knew the country like the palm of his
hand, so he made for a place where several drives intersected, and there
he waited. He had a feeling that the faster and the farther he galloped
the better he should be, and so he was chafing to be off. His mare,
too, was in the height of fettle and one of the fastest goers in the
county. Wat was a splendid lightweight rider--under ten stone with his
saddle--and the mare was a powerful creature, all quarters and
shoulders, fit to carry a lifeguardsman; and so it was no wonder that
there was hardly a man in the field who could hope to stay with him.
There he waited and listened to the shouting of the huntsman and the
whips, catching a glimpse now and then in the darkness of the wood of a
whisking tail, or the gleam of a white-and-tan side amongst the
underwood. It was a well-trained pack, and there was not so much as a
whine to tell you that forty hounds were working all round you.

"And then suddenly there came one long-drawn yell from one of them, and
it was taken up by another, and another, until within a few seconds the
whole pack was giving tongue together and running on a hot scent.
Danbury saw them stream across one of the drives and disappear upon the
other side, and an instant later the three red coats of the hunt
servants flashed after them upon the same line. He might have made a
shorter cut down one of the other drives, but he was afraid of heading
the fox, so he followed the lead of the huntsman. Right through the
wood they went in a bee-line, galloping with their faces brushed by
their horses' manes as they stooped under the branches.

"It's ugly going, as you know, with the roots all wriggling about in the
darkness, but you can take a risk when you catch an occasional glimpse
of the pack running with a breast-high scent; so in and out they dodged
until the wood began to thin at the edges, and they found themselves in
the long bottom where the river runs. It is clear going there upon
grassland, and the hounds were running very strong about two hundred
yards ahead, keeping parallel with the stream. The field, who had come
rou