He had walked for an hour across the fields, blind and deaf to all about him, when an insistent sound from the outer world penetrated the outworks of his disturbed spirit.
He stopped and listened.
Hounds were running. Yes. No. Yes. That musical tow-row, passionate, terrible, and never-to-be-forgotten, was not to be mistaken.
Hounds were running, and they were coming in his direction at speed. Joses, always something of a sportsman, came out of himself in his own despite. He hurried down a bridle-path toward the line of the hunt.
Before him, some fields away, he saw hounds toppling over a hedge like a breaker curling before it fell. There followed in line horsemen and horsewomen, singly, straggling, and in groups.
Joses stayed and watched them sweep by some distance from him. The mutter of horses' feet close at hand struck his ear. He turned and looked over the hedge. A man and a girl were cantering leisurely toward him. The man was on a gray, and it was clear from the way the girl handled her horse that he was young and uncertain of himself.
An imp of malignant deviltry, born of spite and alcohol, bobbed up in Joses's heart. He ducked behind the hedge, opened his umbrella suddenly, and twirled it overhead.
Lollypop's nerves were of the very best, but this was altogether too much for him. He refused suddenly and with a snort, whipped about, swift as a top, slid up, and collapsed on his side.
Boy was flung forward on her head and shoulder.
A moment she stayed where she was on her hands and knees, clutching at the bridle. Lollypop floundered to his feet, and tugged to get away, staring with wide-flung nostrils and trembling flanks at the hedge.