Amongst the most welcome of his visitors was Virginia, for it was she who had, by good fortune, released him from what might have been a far worse predicament than was indicated by the slight damage he had sustained, and although she would have done what she had for any other member of the hunt, still, she had done it, and his gratitude to her had the effect of removing from his mind the last vestiges of the prejudice he had nursed against her, which in its latest stages had been far weaker than he knew. What had happened was as follows.
A stout fox had been turned out of Hartover Copse within a few minutes of the hounds being put into it, and had made off straight across country with a business-like determination that seemed to show that he knew exactly where safety lay and was going to lose no time in making for it.
The Squire, old in his knowledge of the ways of a fox and the lie of the South Meadshire country, had posted himself hard by the point where the fox broke covert, and was one of the first away. For fifteen minutes it was straight hard going, leaving little chance for those who had not secured a good start to make up their distance, and none at all for those who were following on wheels and hoped by taking short cuts to come up with the hounds again at some point or other. When the score or so who were in front obtained a minute of breathing space, while the hounds, which had been running so straight that they overran the line where the fox had turned hard by Gorsey Common, five miles from Kencote, were casting about to recover the scent, there was little of the main field to be seen. The Squire, with joy and exhilaration in his breast, reined up and looked behind him. They had come down a long slope and up another, and in all the mile-wide valley across which they had ridden there were not more than a dozen others to be seen, and some of them very far away. But amongst them were Virginia and Dick, who were even now breasting the grassy, gorsey slope, at the top of which he sat on his horse. Taken unawares, he could not but admire Virginia's slim, graceful figure, swaying so lightly to every move of the mare under her, and he had ready some words to call out to her when she should reach him.
But before that happened the deep note of Corsican, the oldest and wisest hound in the South Meadshire pack, and the thrilling chorus which immediately answered it, warned him that the hounds had found what they had been looking for, and immediately he was off again, with all thought of those behind him forgotten, and nothing in his mind but that baying dappled stream that was leading him, now as fast as before, straight across a country as well grassed as any in the Shires.
Right through the middle of it too; and when he had galloped across half a dozen wide meadows, and Kenilworth had landed him, without the least little vestige of hesitation or clumsiness, on the other side of a stiffish bullfinch, his heart went up in a pæan of gratitude to whatever power directs these matters, at the thought that he had taken chances and had his second horse sent on to Beeston Holt, which lay midway between Kencote and Trensham Woods, to which he now began greatly to hope that this brave fox was leading them.
Only once before, during all the long years in which he had hunted over this country, had such a thing happened. The line between Kencote and Trensham, a distance of twenty-five miles at least, pierced lengthwise this stretch of low-lying grazing country, which, intersected by a brook or two, by stout fences of post and rail, and thick hedges which had no need of barbed wire to aid their defence, was like the fairway of a golf-course, perfect while you were on it, but beset with hazards on either side. Only the most determined of foxes would keep to it for the whole distance. There was Pailthorpe Spinney to the left, before you got to the first brook, and no stopping of earths there could prevent Master Reynard from poking his nose amongst them to try, if he were so minded. And although he could always be bustled out again, it was unlikely that, having once turned aside, he would take to the grass again. He might make for Greenash Wood across heavy ploughs, or for Spilling, where thick orchards made it impossible to follow the hounds, and you had to take one or two wide circuits.
But this fox had already scorned the delusive shelter of Pailthorpe Spinney, and if he was not bending all his attention on the Trensham Woods, where he probably would find safety, if he got there in time, he was at least bound to lead them over grass for another four miles, to where, at Beeston Holt, he might possibly decide to turn aside and cross the river and the railway and try for the first of a long chain of coverts which circled round towards Blaythorn. In that case the best of the day would be over, but if they could keep him on the move there would be something to look forward to before they ran into him, and the run would still be a memorable one. Yes, he was most likely to do that. It was too much to hope for that that glorious day of five-and-thirty years before would be repeated, when the high-stomached ancestor of countless good Meadshire foxes had travelled straight as an arrow, scorning all lesser chances of safety, for the high deep woods of Trensham, and the Squire, not long since married, and in the very flower of his tireless youthful vigour, mounted on his great horse Merrydew, with no change, had kept with the hounds all the way and shaken off master, huntsman, whips, and all, when they ran into him at last within two fields of safety.
And yet!—there was that quick determined start, the sudden turn on Gorsey Common, which meant contempt of the line pointing to the coverts at Mountfield, the passing of Pailthorpe Spinney, and now this direct, rattling run across brook and fence and hedge down the very middle of the grasslands. It might happen—the run of a lifetime repeated. His only fear now was that his second horse would not be up at Beeston Holt in time, for there wasn't a horse in the country or in the wide world which could carry his weight through to Trensham at the pace hounds were running.
Beeston Holt lay on the bank of the river with the railway beyond it. It was a straggling village, facing a stretch of common land, and there was a wide space in front of its chief inn, where the Squire expected to see his second horse waiting for him, if his groom had reached the point. The hounds swept across the common no farther than a couple of hundred yards away, going as strong as ever, and even the time lost in riding that distance away from their line and changing horses might lose him the good place he had hitherto kept.
But there was no horse waiting for him, and with angry despair settling down on him he sat and saw the hounds disappear out of sight and the few who still kept with or near them following at ever-increasing intervals. Dick was one of them. He was riding Roland, the best horse, not a weight carrier, in the Kencote stables, who was quite capable of carrying him to the end of the great run that now seemed certain; for the fox had not turned aside towards the nearer coverts and must have had Trensham in his cunning mind since he had first set out. Dick waved a hand to him as he galloped past. There was no sign of Virginia; on such an occasion as this women, even the best beloved, must look after themselves.