The road up which we had ridden formed the only pass between the hills on either side of us, and beyond was a low-lying level stretch of country.
“If he’ll only run down that way——” Mr. O’Neill began, but suddenly stopped, and silently pointed with his whip to the hill at our right.
“What is it?” I asked, in incautiously loud tones.
He looked for an instant as if he were going to shake his whip at me, and again pointed, this time to a narrow strip of field beside the road. I saw what looked like a little brown shadow fleeting across it, and in another moment the fox appeared on the top of the wall a few yards ahead of us. He looked about him as if considering his next move, and then, seeing us, he leaped into the road and, running along it, vanished over the crest of the hill.
Mr. O’Neill turned to me with such excitement that he seemed a different person. “Here are the hounds!” he said, “and not a soul with them.”
Down the hill the pack came like a torrent, and were over the wall in a second. They spread themselves over the road in front of us as if at fault; but one of the little black-and-tan hounds justified Mr. Dennehy’s good opinion by picking up the line, and at once the whole pack were racing full cry up the road.
I have often looked back with considerable amusement to that moment. I was suddenly possessed by a kind of frenzy of excitement that deprived me of all power of speech. I heard my companion tell me to keep as close to him as I could, but I was incapable of any response save an inebriated smile and a wholly absurd flourish of my whip.
As this does not purport to be a hunting-story, I will not describe the run which followed. I believe it lasted fifteen minutes, and included some of the traditional “big leps” of the country. But to me it was merely an indefinite period of delirious happiness. I scarcely felt Blackthorn jump, and was only conscious of the thud of the big bay horse’s hoofs in front of me and the rushing of the wind in my ears, At last a wood seemed to heave up before me; the bay horse was pulled up sharply, and I found myself almost in the middle of the hounds.
“By George! he’s just saved his brush,” said Mr. O’Neill, breathlessly; “he’s gone to ground in there, and I am afraid we shall never get him out. I hope you are none the worse for your gallop,” he continued politely. “It was pretty fast while it lasted.” He dismounted as he spoke, and began to investigate the hole in which the fox had taken refuge, and while he was thus engaged I saw Mr. Dennehy on his yellow horse coming across the next field. When he came up he was, rather to my surprise, amiably pleased at our success in picking up the hounds, and regretted we had not killed our fox.
“You two and meself were the only ones in this run,” he said.