‘We can have another one another time if he wants to,’ Oswald said.
We know foxes are hunted in red coats and on horseback—but we could not do this—but H. O. had the old red football jersey that was Albert’s uncle’s when he was at Loretto. He was pleased.
‘But I do wish we’d had horns,’ he said grievingly. ‘I should have liked to wind the horn.’
‘We can pretend horns,’ Dora said; but he answered, ‘I didn’t want to pretend. I wanted to wind something.’
‘Wind your watch,’ Dicky said. And that was unkind, because we all know H. O.‘s watch is broken, and when you wind it, it only rattles inside without going in the least.
We did not bother to dress up much for the hunting expedition—just cocked hats and lath swords; and we tied a card on to H. O.‘s chest with ‘Moat House Fox-Hunters’ on it; and we tied red flannel round all the dogs’ necks to show they were fox-hounds. Yet it did not seem to show it plainly; somehow it made them look as if they were not fox-hounds, but their own natural breeds—only with sore throats.
Oswald slipped the pistol and a few cartridges into his pocket. He knew, of course, that foxes are not shot; but as he said—
‘Who knows whether we may not meet a bear or a crocodile.’
We set off gaily. Across the orchard and through two cornfields, and along the hedge of another field, and so we got into the wood, through a gap we had happened to make a day or two before, playing ‘follow my leader’.
The wood was very quiet and green; the dogs were happy and most busy. Once Pincher started a rabbit. We said, ‘View Halloo!’ and immediately started in pursuit; but the rabbit went and hid, so that even Pincher could not find him, and we went on. But we saw no foxes. So at last we made Dicky be a fox, and chased him down the green rides. A wide walk in a wood is called a ride, even if people never do anything but walk in it.