On the high ground above a breathless horde struck in. Rumour, or the wind, or some saving instinct had warned them; they had come at a breakneck pace from their shivering watch elsewhere.
Susan, riding her hardest, with her chin up and rapture on her face, laughed as she heard the frantic thudding of that pursuit.
"They've missed a bit," cried Barnaby at her shoulder. Her horse was faster than his, but was tiring. She was glad to steady him as the pack ran into a strip of trees.
"What a scent!" said Barnaby. "Hark at them! They're sticking to him;—they're driving him up the Pastures!"
He swung round in his saddle, still keeping on. The rearguard, no longer in desperation, were trooping contentedly down the road.
"They'll get left," he said. "They reckon on losing him. Silly asses, they're lighting their cigarettes!"
Slower, but steadily, hounds were running up the wood. Their cry increased in volume, vociferous, echoing in the trees. It sounded a hundred times louder than in the open. And this time there was no changing foxes; they drove him too hard. Out he went at the top, and had no time to twist and turn in again; they were on his heels. Beyond was a steep drop into a village, and then a long struggle, and another drop to a ford. As the last of them were splashing through the water, the first of them were swinging out of their saddles and turning their horses' heads to the wind. They had run to Baggrave, and killed their fox in the Park.
"Three cheers for Barnaby and his outlier," said Kilgour. "That was no poultry-snatcher, but a real beetle-fed warrior. What the dickens shall we do next?"
"Oh, get up in a tree, somebody, like Sister Anne; and rake the horizon for second horses!"
Susan knew that voice. It was Rackham.