enerally break a hedge where you
could not fly it, so they did not trouble the gates more than they could
help. Then they were down in a hard lane, where they had to slacken
their pace, and through a farm where a man came shouting excitedly after
them; but they had no time to stop and listen to him, for the hounds
were on some ploughland, only two fields ahead. It was sloping upwards,
that ploughland, and the horses were over their fetlocks in the red,
soft soil.

"When they reached the top they were blowing badly, but a grand valley
sloped before them, leading up to the open country of the South Downs.
Between, there lay a belt of pine-woods, into which the hounds were
streaming, running now in a long, straggling line, and shedding one here
and one there as they ran. You could see the white-and-tan dots here
and there where the limpers were tailing away. But half the pack were
still going well, though the pace and distance had both been
tremendous--two clear hours now without a check.

"There was a drive through the pine-wood--one of those green, slightly
rutted drives where a horse can get the last yard out of itself, for the
ground is hard enough to give him clean going and yet springy enough to
help him. Wat Danbury got alongside of the huntsman and they galloped
together with their stirrup-irons touching, and the hounds within a
hundred yards of them.

"'We have it all to ourselves,' said he.

"'Yes, sir, we've shook on the lot of 'em this time,' said old Joe
Clarke. 'If we get this fox it's worth while 'aving 'im skinned an'
stuffed, for 'e's a curiosity 'e is.'

"'It's the fastest run I ever had in my life!' cried Danbury.

"'And the fastest that ever I 'ad, an' that means more,' said the old
huntsman. 'But what licks me is that we've never 'ad a look at the
beast. 'E must leave an amazin' scent be'ind 'im when these 'ounds can
follow 'im like this, and yet none of us have seen 'im when we've 'ad a
clear 'alf mile view in front of us.'

"'I expect we'll have a view of him presently,' said Danbury; and in his
mind he added, 'at least, I shall,' for the huntsman's horse was gasping
as it ran, and the white foam was pouring down it like the side of a
washing-tub.

"They had followed the hounds on to one of the side tracks which led out
of the main drive, and that divided into a smaller track still, where
the branches switched across their faces as they went, and there was
barely room for one horse