A fringe of excited onlookers, previous followers of the foot dogs, gathered close, commenting eagerly.
"That is Spinsther, that ye reared, Marty. D'ye call to mind the day he took the trail down be Conellan's dykes, an' we all at the wrong side?"
Marty rubbed his head and recalled the incident.
"An' when he had his pup, didn't he tear meself too," remarked Marty sourly. "A pair of trouser I had on but eighteen months near pulled off me. He is a savage soort of a dog that Spinsther, an' I to rear him an' all with lashin's of milk an' male."
"An' Beauty, he has the nose. When the thrail was losht down anear the say, an' the other dogs on the back thrail, wasn't it Beauty thrun a yowl of his own?"
"Grandjer was the next," put in little Andy, "or maybe the firsht; but Papa had his mind med up he was only thrailin' old Mrs. Day's cat, Grandjer bein' but a puppy then."
"They do be talkin' of the Hunt Club hounds, but we have one fox an' his pups," said the covert keeper. "Five of them no less, an' thank God ye are out to hunt them."
Darby gathered the pack and waved his hand. The hounds looked up at the passage of the dog-skin glove through the air with mild curiosity. Darby waved it again; he uttered somewhat awkwardly a variety of hunting cries.
"Oh, give them a whack, you two, Barty," he said helplessly. "Thrash them in." Carty raised his whip, a motion immediately followed by a frantic bolt of the chestnut round the field.
"Me Dada 'd get up on the furry banks if he did hunt a covert on the sly," piped Andy; "make a lep in himself till all 'd be afther him. Onst they've a taste of the thrail ye can lave them."