“Well done! that’s your sort,” he shouted. “Hold him now, and hit him! This is a big place we’re coming to.”
We were over before I had time to think, and to my horror I saw that Willy was making for a hill that looked like the side of a house, covered with furze.
“There’s a way up here, but you’ll have to lead. Nip off! I’ll go first.”
I was fearfully out of breath, but Willy allowed no time for delay. Up the hill we scrambled, Blackthorn leading me considerably more than I led him. After the first few seconds of climbing, I felt as if it would be impossible to go on. My habit hindered me at every step. Blackthorn’s jerks and tugs at the reins nearly threw me on my face, and the fear of Willy alone prevented me from letting him finish the ascent by himself. When at last we reached the top, Willy and I were both so much out of breath that we could not speak, and I wished for nothing so much as to lie down. But Willy, with a blazing face, made signs to me to mount at once, and, jerking me into the saddle, we again set off.
The top of the hill which we had now gained was rough, boggy ground. Down to our right lay the gleaming laurel covert, and in front of us the hill sloped gradually down into a low tract of bog and lakes, with hills beyond. We could see nothing of any one, but a countryman, on the top of a bank above the wood, waved semaphore-like directions that the hounds were running to the north-east.
“Hullo! here’s Nugent,” said Willy, in a not over-pleased voice, and as he spoke I saw Mr. O’Neill’s bay horse coming along over the hill. He soon overtook us, looking, I was glad to see, as heated and dishevelled as Willy and I.
“I knew that way of Connie’s was no use, so I came back and went up the hill after you. Where are the hounds?”
“Going north-east, a fellow told me. But look! By Jove! there they are on the hill across the bog, and going straight for Killnavoodhee.”
“There is only one way to pick them up,” said Nugent, with what seemed to me unnatural calm—“we must cross the bog.”
“But, my dear fellow, I don’t believe there’s a way across, and once we got in, we’d not get out in a hurry.”