Leaving Island Thorns on his left and Pitt’s woods on his right, the buck headed straight for Letchmore Stream. Here hounds threw up. The Master cast them a quarter of a mile down water, hitting the line again at the spot where the buck took to dry land.
“Look how the leading hounds drive,” said Lionel to Margot. “He’s not far ahead. He tarried as long as possible.”
The pace was now terrific. An August sun blazed down. The pace was hotter than the sun.
“If this lasts,” thought Lionel, “he’ll beat us.”
They sped past Hasleys’ over holes and ruts. To the right of Margot one young fellow took an appalling toss, hurled from the saddle like a stone from a catapult, as his horse rolled end over end. He jumped up, shouting cheerily: “I’m all right. Go on!” Another thruster, a stranger, was bogged near Broomy Water. Lionel steered a little to the left, which brought him to the ford. Here the Master had expected the buck to soil. But the leading hounds flung themselves across the stream, picked up the line without a check and raced into Broomy.
“Ware rabbit-holes!” yelled Lionel, looking over his shoulder.
Margot’s horse jumped half a dozen cleverly.
“Forrard! Forrard!”
Out of Broomy on to the heather again, through Milkham, where the buck had passed a half-dried-up stream, and into Roe. Here the quarry soiled. On and on to Buckherd Bottom. Coming through this, Lionel caught a glimpse of ten bucks cantering away across the open, but too far off to determine whether the hunter deer was amongst them or not. The Master divined, happily, that he wasn’t. He picked up his hounds, jogged on steadily, hounds casting themselves well in front of him, and before he had gone three hundred yards, four or five couple began throwing their tongues.
“They’ve hit the line again,” said Margot.