It may be permissible to introduce a meet of hounds at or about the end of a chapter, but I feel sure that the ensuing run must be given elbow-room. Alarming to many though this statement may be, yet it may be said that its foundations are laid in truth and equity, and in the necessities of this history may be found the justification of the chapter.

The Quarry Wood had not failed. Larry's fox had been in it. To Larry, seated on his stout, bay cob, with a heart banging against his ribs, and a soul absorbed into a single supplication, had come, suddenly and beautifully, the answer to prayer, the ineffable spectacle of a large and lovely fox, sliding quietly away, at the right place, at the right moment. Life could offer Larry no more; not then, at all events.

"My coverts-my fox!"

Not many boys of sixteen, enthusiasts, endowed with just that touch of the poetic temperament that can set the brain reeling, could know a more wondrous moment.

Then to see Cousin Dick, blazing and splendid, charging out of the wood, "like the man on the red horse in Revelation," as Christian said afterwards-(Christian had sneaked away from Charles, the coachman, and had followed Larry)-with the hounds flashing around and ahead of him, and Cottingham's rasping "Forrad! Forrad!" from the wood behind, like the blast of a bellows upon flames!

Larry had been past speech when that apocalyptic vision had materialised in response to his halloa. He had waved his hat and cheered the hounds to the line of the fox, but it had been unnecessary; they had not had an instant's uncertainty, and had taken hold on their own account without reference to anyone.

That the hold taken by the hounds was a firm and assured one was due, not only to their own virtues, but also to the fact that where the fox had broken, a tract of turf bog met the wood, and carried a scent of entire efficiency. What, however, it was incapable of carrying were the horses. The hounds, uttering their ecstasy in that gorgeous chorus of harmonious discordance called Full Cry, sped across the bog like a flock of seagulls; but for the riders, a narrow track between deep ditches left by the turf-cutters for their carts, was the sole hope, and a string of horses, galloping in single file, was soon following hard on the heels of the Master. Foremost of them all were Christian and Larry, filled with an elation beyond the power of words to convey. The hounds were holding steadily right-handed across the bog, and were ever widening the distance between them and the riders, but it was enough for these two children to be able to keep their proud place, next after the Master, and to know that no one, not even Cottingham, could deprive them of it. It may gravely be questioned if Tommy, the stout bay cob, and Harry, the residue of a hunt horse, appreciated a position to which they were so little accustomed. Harry, whose heart, indisputably in the right place, was possibly the only sound item in his outfit, pounded gallantly on, roaring as he went, like a lion seeking after his prey; but Tommy, whose labours were, as a rule, limited to mild harness-work, was kept going mainly by stress of circumstances, in which category Larry's spurs took a prominent part. The bog-track at length became merged in a rushy field, and then indeed did the pent waters of the hunt break forth. Major Dick's tall chestnut had gradually increased his lead, and by the time the track was clear of riders, he was two fields ahead, with Cottingham not far behind, and a few indignant young men riding like maniacs to overtake them. To have been held back by a schoolboy and a little girl is an indignity not easily to be borne. The Broadwater Vale field was a hard-going one, including a strengthening of young soldiers from the regiment quartered at Riverstown, and it was not long before Tommy and Harry were beginning to find themselves in a more familiar and less exigent position. Judith, on the grey mare, went by them like a flash; Doctor Mangan overtook them heavily, and heavily passed them. Father David, riding a little wide of the crowd, waved a friendly hand to Christian, as the black mare, composed and discreet, as became a daughter of the Church, dwelt for an instant on the top of a wide bank, before she struck off into the next field. Worst indignity of all, Charles, the coachman, on the elderly carriage horse, drew alongside, and presumed to offer directions and admonitions. "As if," thought Christian, as she drove Harry at the bank in the wake of the black mare, "I cared a pin what he says!"

Gone for poor Charles were the days when Miss Christian had revered him above all other created things; days such as the one on which, after a ride round the yard on an unharnessed carriage horse, Christian, in gratitude too great for words, had attempted to kiss him. Charles had repelled the embrace, saying tactfully: "No pleasures in Lent, Miss!" and Christian had accepted the excuse. Then Miss Christian had been three years old, now she was thirteen, and Charles had, in the interval, married a cook, and lost his figure, and with it, had departed his nerve, and the reverance of Miss Christian, and he knew it.

Close behind Charles came Dr. Mangan's "little girl," who had been confided with a lubricating half-crown, to his care. Miss Letitia Mangan was far from considering herself a little girl. She was sixteen and a half, and conceived herself to be of combatant rank, even though her thick, dark hair banged on her back in a ponderous pigtail, and her education at the Cluhir Convent School was still uncompleted. The fat, piebald pony that she was riding would have a sore back before she got home. Christian, perched wren-like on her ancient steed (but a wren placed with mathematical accuracy of directness with relation to the steed's ears), noted with disfavour the crooked seat, the heavy hand on the curb. Larry, hot and pink, with hat hanging by its guard, his fair hair looking like storm-tossed corn-stooks, noted nothing, being wholly engrossed in bitter conflict with Tommy. The art of keeping a good start with hounds is not given to many, and least of all to the young and inexperienced. From having been first of the first, it had fallen to Larry and Christian to find themselves last, and last in the despised company of Charles and "the Mangan girl."

The unexacting position of being at the heel of the hunt may have a charm for the philosophic or unambitious, but so black a continuation of so great a start was a trial quite beyond the endurance of a young gentleman possessed of the artistic temperament. And then the abominable Mangan girl came into play, and joined in the circling performance at the big bank. Always, when Larry felt that this time the cob was going to "have it," that cow-like red and white beast would jam itself in the way, so he thought, raging. In this matter of hunting, Dr. Mangan had not been well advised in his scheme for his little girl's social advantage.

In the meantime the hounds had run their fox into Drumkeen Wood, and the riders, arriving in small and breathless companies, thanked God for a check, and tightened their girths and took courage. The latter would undoubtedly be needed if the run continued; Drumkeen Wood was hung like a cloak upon the side of a steep hill, and was the invariable prelude to the worst going within the bounds of the hunt.

"If he's into the big earth here, I'm afraid it's good-bye to him!" said Dr. Mangan, taking courage in a liquid form. "It was a sweet gallop while it lasted! Sweet and short, like this toothful of cherry brandy I'm after drinking!"

"Ah, that's poor stuff, Doctor," said Mr. Hallinan, proprietor of Hallinan's Hotel, a prosperous hostelry, much patronised by salmon-fishers. "Give me a sup of good old John Jameson in its purity!"

"'Twas for Tishy I brought this out," replied the Doctor, apologetically; "but I lost sight of her. She's back somewhere with little Christian Lowry and young Coppinger."

"What sort of a lad is that?" asked Mr. Hallinan. "Is he as big a pup as them young Lowrys?"

"Ah, they're not so bad altogether," said Dr. Mangan, indulgently. "Young sprigs like them are none the worse for a little tashpy, as the people say!" The Doctor's heavy voice relaxed a little over the world tashpy (which, it should perhaps be explained, is Irish, and implies a blend of impudence and high spirits). He was quite aware that his friend Hallinan and he regarded the Talbot-Lowrys from a different standpoint.

"I was having a bit of lunch there the other day," he went on, "and I thought they were nice boys enough."

"I hope you got enough to eat!" said Mr. Hallinan, disagreeably; "I'm told that their butcher's sick and tired trying to get what he's owed, out of them! There should be drink enough, anyway! I'm just after sending in a case of whisky there. God knows when I'll be ped for it!"

At this moment the two gentlemen, whose horses were nibbling the grass of the bank that surrounded the wood, were shaken by the sudden appearance of the white nose of the Master's chestnut on the other side of the bank.

"I'd be obliged if there was less noise!" said the Master's voice, with threatening in it.

Mr. Hallinan's jaw dropped unaffectedly.

"Merciful God!" he murmured; "did he hear me, d'ye think?"

"Ah, no fear, man!" whispered the Doctor, encouragingly. "And if he did itself, maybe you'd get your cheque a bit quicker!"

In the silence that followed, a whimpering whistle from a hound, invisible, yet near at hand, sent a thrill through the waiting riders. There followed the rustling rush of hounds through the undergrowth, as they gathered to enquire into the whimper. Then another whimper, merging into a squeal, and Cottingham's voice:

"Hark to Dulcet! Forrad to Dulcet!"

"Begad, they have him again," said Dr. Mangan, without enthusiasm. "I wonder where is Tishy gone to? I suppose they'll run these blasted hills now--"

The big grey horse, and his seventeen stone rider, moved off in the opposite direction to the tread of the hunt, which was slowly and steadily pushing upwards through the wood. Dr. Mangan was one of the select company of followers of hounds who know when they have had enough.

A narrow, stony passage, more resembling a drain than a lane, ran round the wood; the riders hustled along it, like a train in a cutting, too tightly packed for the most vindictive kicker to injure his neighbour, too hampered by impeding rocks to make more speed than can be accomplished by a jog. The drain ended at a V-shaped fissure between two slants of rock, and, by the time the last horse had clattered and scrambled up it, the hounds were away again, steering up, across heathery fields, enclosed by fences and stone walls of all sorts and sizes, for a great double-headed hill on the sky-line, three or more miles away.

"Carrigaholt as usual!" said Major Dick, over his shoulder, to the Hon. Sec., young Kirby of Castle Ire. "If you get a chance, try and head him off the western rocks-and Bill! Tell those infernal children of mine they're to keep with Charles and look out for bogs!"

His conscience as a parent thus appeased, the Master applied himself to the no small task of keeping his hounds in sight, and of evading the equal difficulties presented by rocks and bog holes. The offspring in question were now, with Larry, in comparative and undesired safety beneath the fluttering wing of Charles, and Bill Kirby, having faithfully delivered his message, found himself immediately adopted as an alternative protector, and repented him of his fidelity.

The hounds stormed on through the hills, running hard across the frequent boggy tracts, more slowly, and with searchings, over the intervening humps of rock and furze. The fox was making a well-known point, and running a well-known line, but the fences in their infinite variety, defied the staling force of custom, and the difficulties of the going were intensified by the pace. The hounds gained at length the ridge of the high country, and as they flitted along the skyline, the riders, labouring among the rocks, skirting the bogs, pounding at the best pace they could raise over the intervals of heather and grass, felt that their hold on the hunt had become distinctly insecure.

"'Christian dost thou see them?'" quoted Larry, kicking his heels into the bay cob's well-covered ribs without effect, "for I don't!"

"They'll check at Carrigaholt," called back Bill Kirby; "that'll be our chance--"

They were far up on the slope of the hills now; the country swung in long, dipping lines, down to the Vale of the Broadwater, and spread, in great and generous curves, away to the far range of the Mweelin Mountains, that brooded, in colour a deep and sullen sapphire, on the horizon. The town of Cluhir, a little puff of smoke, cut in two by the wide river, lay below. The spires of the two churches rose above the smoke, one on either side of the bridge that spanned the river. The sound of bells, faintly rising from one of them, summoned the faithful to the mid-day Mass in honour of St. Stephen.

Larry, pushing Tommy along at a dogged canter, lifted his bowler hat as he heard the bells, and Christian and Judith looked at each other. The tradition of the Protestant, "No demonstrations!" with its singular suspicion and distrust of manifestations of reverence or poetry, had been early implanted in them, and Judith murmured to Christian: "How on earth does he remember?"

"I know I couldn't," admitted Christian; yet some feeling that, though crushed, had survived the heavy feet of Lady Isabel's trusted manuals, stirred in her in accord with the faint clash of the chapel bells, making her envy Larry his accredited salutation, making her feel something of the beauty, if not of holiness, of, at least, the recognition that there were holy things in the world.

On the nearer head of Carrigaholt the check, predicted by Bill Kirby, came. A narrow and level plateau ran between the twin crests; above it on both sides, rose successive shelves of cliff, with swathes of russet bracken muffling their fierce outline. Flung about on the shelves, looking like tumbled piles of giant books in a neglected library, were immense rectangular rocks; one would say that only the grey and knotted cords of the ivy that had crept over them, held them in their place upon those rugged shelves. At one end of the level place the ground fell steeply to a wild stream, the Feorish, from whose farther bank another hill, but little less formidable than Carrigaholt, rose like an enemy tower, threatening its defences. The hounds swarmed like bees among the rocks, jumping or falling from shelf to shelf, burrowing and thrusting through the bracken, their heads appearing suddenly in quite improbable places, with glowing eyes and glistening pink tongues, demanding from their huntsman the information that no one but themselves could give.

It was a place in which not one, but a hundred places of safety presented themselves to a fox, but this good fox had despised them all, and, of all the hounds, it was Amazon, Christian's beloved foundling, who was first to recognise the fact. Far down, from the bottom of the gorge, she called to her fellows, and it was Christian, of all the riders, who first heard her voice. If Larry had had his great moment, when the fox broke, it was Christian's turn now, when Amazon fresh-found him. I suppose there are not very many people who, as well as being perfectly happy, are conscious of their perfect happiness. This little girl was of that privileged company, as, in answer to her call, her father threw the pack over the edge of the plateau and cheered them to Amazon.

In two minutes, a frenzied chorus was filling the narrow gorge, the cry of the hounds, the hurrying reiterated notes of the horn, the shouts of the Whips rating on stragglers, echoing and re-echoing from cliff to cliff. Before the riders had committed themselves to the descent, the leading hounds were straining up the opposite cliff face; slithering, and slipping, the horses were hurried down a track that goats had made between rocks and bracken, and, at the base, found themselves confronted with the problem of the river. The River Styx could hardly look less attractive than did the Feorish, as it swirled, swollen and foaming, among its rocks, its dark torrent plunging from steep to steep in roaring waterfalls. Some country men, high on the cliffs, howled directions, and the Master, his eye on his hounds struggling with the fierce stream, went on down the gorge until the howls changed their metre, thus indicating to the experienced that the moment had come to cross the river. The ford, such as it was, permitted some half dozen of the horses to cross it, splashing and floundering, wobbling perilously from the round and slimy back of one sunken rock to another.

Judith and the grey mare, following close on Bill Kirby's heels, got over neatly, and were away after him over the top of the hill before Christian's turn came. The ancient and skilled Harry addressed himself to the task with elderly caution, feeling his way with suspicion, creeping across with slow-poised feet, and was so delicate over the effort, that Larry's cob, following too close on him, was checked at a critical moment. He struggled, slipped, recovered, found himself still hindered by Harry, and, with a final stagger, lost footing altogether, and rolled over.

Cottingham, subsequently recounting the incident, declared that he thought, he did, that the young genel'm was done for; but "that little Miss Christeen-she's a nummer she is!-she off'n 'er 'oss before I fair sees what's 'appened, and she ketches the young chap by the 'ed, and pulls 'im clear! Her did indeed! A lill' gurl like what she is too! Her's wuth more than ten big men!"

What a singular encomium, "a nummer" might mean, was a fact known only to Cottingham, but it was incontrovertibly Christian's eel-like swiftness of action that had saved Larry from a worse accident. Small and slender though she was, she was wiry, and she had the gift of being able instantly to concentrate every force of mind and body upon a desired point-a rare gift and a precious one.

But when she and Larry, dripping and hatless, were hauled into safety by other helpers, less swift but more powerful, it was found that Larry had not come out of the Feorish unscathed. His left hand was hanging, helpless, with a broken wrist.

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