Johnny Ludlow, Sixth Series

by Mrs. Henry Wood

THE SILENT CHIMES

III.—RINGING AT MIDDAY

I

It was an animated scene; and one you only find in England. The stubble of the cornfields looked pale and bleak in the departing autumn, the wind was shaking down the withered leaves from the trees, whose thinning branches told unmistakably of the rapidly-advancing winter. But the day was bright after the night’s frost, and the sun shone on the glowing scarlet coats of the hunting-men, and the hounds barked in every variety of note and leaped with delight in the morning air. It was the first run of the season, and the sportsmen were fast gathering at the appointed spot—a field flanked by a grove of trees called Poachers’ Copse.

Ten o’clock, the hour fixed for the throw-off, came and went, and still Poachers’ Copse was not relieved of its busy intruders. Many a gentleman fox-hunter glanced at his hunting-watch as the minutes passed, many a burly farmer jerked his horse impatiently; while the grey-headed huntsman cracked his long whip amongst his canine favourites and promised them they should soon be on the scent. The delay was caused by the non-arrival of the Master of the Hounds.

But now all eyes were directed to a certain quarter, and by the brightened looks and renewed stir, it might be thought that he was appearing. A stranger, sitting his horse well and quietly at the edge of Poachers’ Copse, watched the newcomers as they came into view. Foremost of them rode an elderly gentleman in scarlet, and by his side a young lady who might be a few years past twenty.

“Father and daughter, I’ll vow,” commented the stranger, noting that both had the same well-carved features, the same defiant, haughty expression, the same proud bearing. “What a grandly-handsome girl! And he, I suppose, is the man we are waiting for. Is that the Master of the Hounds?” he asked aloud of the horseman next him, who chanced to be young Mr. Threpp.

“No, sir, that is Captain Monk,” was the answer. “They are saying yonder that he has brought word the Master is taken ill and cannot hunt to-day”—which proved to be correct. The Master had been taken with giddiness when about to mount his horse.

The stranger rode up to Captain Monk; judging him to be regarded—by the way he was welcomed and the respect paid him—as the chief personage at the meet, representing in a manner the Master. Lifting his hat, he begged grace for having, being a stranger, come out, uninvited, to join the field; adding that his name was Hamlyn and he was staying with Mr. Peveril at Peacock’s Range.