"Beautiful!" exclaims Parson Gale, forgetting the existence of John Garnet and the terms of his own wicked oath.
"Beautiful!" whisper the lovers, exchanging a lover's glance, while Katerfelto's rider feels a thrill of delight creep through his whole frame with the consciousness of his horse's speed and endurance; nor can Nelly herself spare him more than half her attention, so taken up is she with the gallant appearance of the deer.
"Beautiful!" echo the honest squires and yeomen, already speculating on the line, and anticipating the severity of the chase, while Red Rube, with his hand pressing Abel's knee, who is laying on his hounds with a cheer, thus delivers himself:—
"Brow, Bay, and Tray, I tell'ee, with four on the top! All his rights, as I am a living sinner, a warrantable deer, if ever there was one, or I'll eat'un, horns and all!"
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
AT FAULT.
In the first ten minutes of a run with hounds everything else must needs be forgotten, for in these minutes men cast to the winds all earthly considerations but one, viz., how to get as close to the chase as possible, and keep there! It is not too much to say that a league of heather had been traversed at speed ere Parson Gale found he could spare a thought for anything but the holding together of Cassock, and the making the most of that good horse's powers.
His skilful riding, however, and intimate knowledge of the country, soon enabled him to draw rein on a slope of rising ground, while the line of chase, bending towards him where he stood, afforded a general survey of the whole pageant as it swept on.