I never have the luck to see a run.' But no; on and on--down the wind and down the vale; and the canter became a gallop, and the gallop a long straining stride; and a hundred horsehoofs crackled like flame among the stubbles, and thundered fetlock-deep along the heavy meadows; and every fence thinned the cavalcade, till the madness began to stir all bloods, and with grim earnest silent faces, the initiated few settled themselves to their work, and with the colonel and Lancelot at their head, 'took their pleasure sadly, after the manner of their nation,' as old Froissart has it.
'Thorough bush, through brier, Thorough park, through pale;' till the rolling grass-lands spread out into flat black open fallows, crossed with grassy baulks, and here and there a long melancholy line of tall elms, while before them the high chalk ranges gleamed above the mist like a vast wall of emerald enamelled with snow, and the winding river glittering at their feet.
'A polite fox!' observed the colonel.

'He's leading the squire straight home to Whitford, just in time for dinner.' * * * * * They were in the last meadow, with the stream before them.

A line of struggling heads in the swollen and milky current showed the hounds' opinion of Reynard's course.

The sportsmen galloped off towards the nearest bridge.

Bracebridge looked back at Lancelot, who had been keeping by his side in sulky rivalry, following him successfully through all manner of desperate places, and more and more angry with himself and the guiltless colonel, because he only followed, while the colonel's quicker and unembarrassed wit, which lived wholly in the present moment, saw long before Lancelot, 'how to cut out his work,' in every field.
'I shan't go round,' quietly observed the colonel.
'Do you fancy I shall ?' growled Lancelot, who took for granted--poor thin-skinned soul! that the words were meant as a hit at himself.
'You're a brace of geese,' politely observed the old squire; 'and you'll find it out in rheumatic fever.