The last day was never taken very seriously by the regular followers of the Duke's hounds. All those to whom hunting was the one worthy occupation in life kept religiously aloof.
"It's the people's day," they said. "They don't want us."
To-day was no exception to the rule.
Before lunch hounds chopped a mangy fox outside Prior's Wood; and it was not till the afternoon was getting on that they found a rover lying out in a field of mangolds.
He must have been a hill-fox, who had been caught raiding in the lowlands, for he made a straight point for the Downs.
There was the usual scurry. Boy Woodburn was, as always, the last away, with Silver in close attendance.
They threaded the ragged fringes of pedestrians, who still clung to the skirts of the horsemen, turned to the right through an open gate, and leisurely pursued the cavalcade disappearing furiously before them in the distance.
The girl nursed her baby, who showed himself as unconcerned by the fuss and flurry of the vanguard as his young mistress; while Banjo fretted and fumed to get away.
They crossed a big grass field at a canter. Lollypop was young and raw as a calf, and Jim Silver rode well behind, giving him and his rider plenty of room.