Before the glow of this impulse had time to be succeeded by its too familiar reaction, the broken, yet persistent cry of hounds came to my ear. It advanced swiftly, coming, seemingly, from higher levels, into the desolated spaces that had once been Killoge Wood. From the inner depths of Mrs. Knox's wrappings the face of the woolly dog amazingly presented itself; from the companion depths of the public-house an equally unexpected party of convives burst forth and stood at gaze. Mrs. Knox tried to stand up, was borne down by the sheer weight of rugs and the woolly dog, glared at me for a tense moment, and hissed, "They're coming this way! Try to get a view!"
Before the words had passed her lips someone in the group at the door vociferated, "Look at him above! Look at him!"
I looked "above," but could see nothing. Not so the rest of the group.
"Now! look at him going west the rock! Now! He's passing the little holly-tree—he's over the fence——"
I bore, as I have so often borne, the exasperation of, as it were, hearing instead of seeing a cinematograph, but I saw no reason why I should submit to the presence of Mr. M'Sweeny, who had sociably sprung into the motor beside me in order to obtain a better view.
"Look at him over the wall!" howled the cinematograph. "Look at the size he is! Isn't he the divil of a sheep!"
It was at this moment that I first caught sight of the fox, about fifty yards on the farther side of Casey's assortment of live stock and their guardian cur dogs, gliding over the wall like a cat, and slipping away up the road. At this point Mr. M'Sweeny, finding the disadvantage of his want of stature, bounded on to the seat beside me and uttered a long yell.
"Hi! At him! Tiger, good dog! Hi! Rosy!"
I cannot now say whether I smote M'Sweeny in the legs before he jumped, or if I merely accelerated the act; he appeared to be running before he touched the ground, and he probably took it as a send-off, administered in irrepressible fellow-feeling.
Tiger and Rosy were already laying themselves out down the road, and their yelps streamed back from them like the sparks from an engine. The party at the door was suddenly in full flight after them with a swiftness and unanimity that again recalled the cinematograph. They caught away with them Stephen Casey and his animals; and I had an enlivening glimpse of the donkey at the top of the hunt, braying as it went; of Goggin trying in vain to stem the companion flight of the calves. The bend of the road hid them all from us; the thumping of heavy feet, the sobbing bray of the donkey, passed rapidly into remoteness, and Mrs. Knox and I were left with nothing remaining to us of the situation save the well-defined footmarks of M'Sweeny on the seat beside me (indelible, as I afterwards discovered).