The fox had not only gone some time, but he was twisting with the ease of the unpressed animal, looking for holes here and there, and making for Craughwell Woods in front of him, where he hoped to find an open earth.
In this he was mistaken. He was hunted doggedly and slowly up and down the big woods, the long harrier note echoing among the trees, until in a downpour of rain he broke again, slipping away for the Craughwell river, which swelled bank-high in flood.
Now Darby knew too well that there were only two possible passages across the stream, one by the bridge on the road, an unlikely line, and the other a slippery ford half a mile up, where if a fox crossed, he generally made for Ardhee Cross, about three miles off and up hill, a line through series of small woods and high straggling hedges.
Darby galloped for the ford, a large contingent at his heels, to be stopped by a locked gate which even his heated language could not blast open.
Gheena flew down the long avenue to the bridge in the road, with her stepfather, General Brownlow and a few others clattering behind her. She found an open gate and splashed up two low-lying fields, to find hounds at fault in a wide expanse of sown winterage dotted with sullen little pools of water.
If Darby had been there he would have let them alone. He knew their noses. George Freyne's moment was come; his black cap sat as a crow upon his head, and his office as first Master was heavy on him. He would show his brother-in-law. And just at that moment Daisy, staring about, put a hare up out of a tussock near the hedge and towled off in its wake by herself.
"Tally ho! One of the brutes has got it!" shouted George Freyne. "Here the others. Tally ho! Forrard on!"
Gheena shrieked out that a small boy had viewed a hare away and that she could hear the horn up the river.
The assistant Master, ignoring this, whistled and blew and cheered until General Brownlow rocked on his horse.
In a moment everyone was ordered to get round hounds. Futile groans emanated from the horn. Mrs. Freyne cantered vaguely round the pack and asked them politely to go up to George.