“That’s right,” said Trimbush, going like a bullet through the furze, “although I should not wonder but he’s gone.”
The hounds, instructed by Trimbush, and agreeing to adopt his proceedings, were Dashwood, Hector, Loyalty, Wildboy, and Rubicon, all old friends of his. We went together in a body full swing, more as if we were flying to a view halloo than drawing a cover, and just when about the thick of it, a whimper from Chancellor announced that the devil’s own was afoot.
“Tally-ho!” now rung from Tom Holt’s throat.
“Shoot to the right,” said Trimbush, leading, and in a few strides we were outside the thick, almost impenetrable gorse.
“Tally-ho, tally-ho!” again hallooed Tom.
“Come along,” said the old hound, “we are close to his brush this time at any rate.”
Racing to where the whipper-in stood with his cap in the air, we picked up the scent and found it sweeter than fresh-pulled flowers.
Settling to him, and with a bunch of our companions, who likewise made play to the halloo as we did, away we rattled at the pace which only a burning scent and hounds bristling for a kill can show.
For an hour-and-a-half we burst him along, and not one fox in a thousand could have stood before us for such a time and over such a country, in which there was not so much as a spinny to hide him; but he kept on at just the same rate, and a halloo, every now and then, told us that he was only just a-head. Several of us were tailed off, and some never reached the main body at all. The burst was so quick, that the field, too, couldn’t get well away with us, and the consequence was that nearly all the horses were run to a stand-still before getting their second wind.
“I begin to think,” said Trimbush, still the leader of the chosen few, “that his point’s Gretwith rock, and if so, there’s not a bush to hold him for fifteen miles as straight as the crow flies.”