After greetings had been exchanged, Sir Tudor appealed to Jim Curnow of Towednack, whose keenness and knowledge he had already noticed: “Where shall we draw first?”
“Try the ground about the Galver,” said Curnow, “if there’s a hare left in the country she’ll be there.”
So it was decided; and all moved off to the hill, where the pack scattered freely in search of the game.
They were a level lot of hounds, very much alike to a stranger, yet as different in the eyes of the squire as were their names to his ears. He had named them himself, most happily Squire Praed thought, on hearing Sir Tudor call in turn on Melody, Corisande, Guinevere, Merlin, Cymro, and Caradoc.
Awhile each hound worked separately, indifferent to all around, one would have thought, yet in reality keenly observant of the others, for as soon as Trueboy waved his stern half a score flocked to him.
They are at once all excitement, as well they may be; they have hit the line of the hare, and are following it between the two big boulders where he passed on his way to Hannibal’s Carn, the tan splashes on their coats gleaming like russet gold in the slant sunlight, their musical voices awakening the echoes of the rocks, and thrilling every member of the little field.
Soon they return to the Galver, clinging tenaciously to the trail, whose bewildering maze they strive their utmost to unravel. The eager movements of every hound show that he knows the hare is near and will soon be afoot, yet, when like a shadow gliding over the sunlit slope below the ridge he silently steals away, not one even suspects that he has risen, much less catches a glimpse of his crouching form.
The squire, however, has viewed him; his hand proclaims it, raised to command silence and allow a reasonable start to the jack, who still moves stealthily in the hope of getting away unobserved. But the moment the squire cheers the hounds on to his line he knows that he has been seen, instantly abandons his slinking tactics and breaks into a gallop, his head pointed straight for his native hills.
It was an exhilarating moment for Sir Tudor, and as he settled down to ride, what with the pleasant undulations of his horse, what with the freshness of the morning and the wildness of the country, above all with the thought that his little companions in a hundred hunts were chiming on the scent of their first Cornish hare, he would not have changed seats with King George.
He kept sufficiently close to the pack to observe the niceties of the chase and help the hounds in case of a check; but they held on, straight as a crow might fly, in the direction of Chun Castle.