May was with them, the sea dimpling to her summer blue, with discreet return to steel in the shade.
Darby stood one morning with his hounds, the scratch pack, leaping clamorously at the bars, and decided to take them home. They knew him now; they would not run riotously when he let them out, but trot at his horse's heels.
Hunting was over; Grandjer and Beauty and Greatness were never likely to come to Dillon's Court again. The sadness of all endings tinged his glances at the medley of hounds. They had possessed noses, they had hunted keenly and with infinite patience; they had pulled down foxes and had given him many hours of pleasure, many hearty laughs.
It was early morning. The sun had not lifted the mist wraiths from the hollows; dew lay everywhere and a maze of silver gossamer threads caught the glints of light. Scarlet anemones, blood red, peered from the beds; in the front, narcissi were replacing the yellow daffodils.
"I came—you said they were to go back this morning." Psyche dropped off Whitebird. "Oh, I shall never love anything again as I have running after them, the darlings! Anne gave me some early breakfast."
"You'll run after real packs," said Darby, "and forget my assortment."
"But they—the others—will never be my first pack," said Psyche with logic, "and I want to stay here with them."
They pattered out of the yard, the hounds going dejectedly, the horses stale from working for too long; Carty's chestnut apathetic even as to whip lashes, Andy with tears in his eyes. A wondrous winter had ended and school loomed before him. They passed from the mists to the higher ground, where they could cut across the hills to the house of Andy's mother.
What brought an old fox out on that May morning, sunning himself close to a patch of gorse? And he must have wondered what brought a pack of mongrel dogs, all related to hounds, trotting through the heather and over the shining slates. Grandjer threw his tongue almost savagely; the old fox turned tail and fled, and in a moment the whole pack were yowling in pursuit as he topped the crest of the hill.
The rusty-coated horses woke up; Andy screamed Barty's "Forrard away!" rolled down the hillsides, and the four turned to ride over a country with all the gaps fenced up, with corn sown, meadows growing.