"Get up yourself," said Kilgour. "Your history isn't sound. I don't trust my weight on anything but a watch-tower."
Susan had turned away her face; she did not want to have to acknowledge Rackham, although he had no shame in approaching her. Nervously she plunged into a rapid argument with Kilgour, whose broad and comfortable presence was a kind of buckler. But through it all she was conscious of him, she heard his voice. He and Barnaby were arranging something about a horse. She did not catch the drift of it, but Rackham turned to her pointedly and asked her opinion.
"I wasn't listening," she said. His glance was penetrating; she could not escape it, and recollection burnt in her cheek. She heard Barnaby whistle suddenly to himself.
Hounds were moving at last, not hurrying, but drifting across the park, searching as they went; and second horsemen were springing up out of nowhere. Those who were lucky were changing horses. Already it was far on in the afternoon.
"That's the worst of beginning so late," said Kilgour. "The day's gone before you know it. And here we've been dawdling, munching.... Now we'll just get away with the twilight after dodging backwards and forwards for an hour or two between the Prince of Wales's and Barkby Holt."
"Shut up, ill prophet!" said Barnaby, as they gathered close in to the cover-side. Already there was a whimper.
But it was late before the prophesied shilly-shallying came to its appointed end, and those who had resisted the false alarms, sticking patiently on guard at a windy corner, saw a fox break at last. A misleading holloa had drawn off the field; they were massing on the other side, out of sight, out of hearing in the rising wind that carried away with it the warning note of the horn. And hounds were slipping out like lightning.
"Come on!" said Barnaby. This time there was no mistake.
It didn't matter that there was a rival shout behind the dense thicket. Let those who liked it exclaim that the pack was divided, and miss a run to hang skirmishing for ever and ever about the Holt.... They had a fox away, and at least half the hounds were on him as he dipped the rise and went spinning into the infinite. Just a handful of riders they were, but high-hearted, as they turned their faces towards the dim red line of the sinking sun.
Miles and miles they seemed to go swinging on. Behind a grey church, round a silent village, and under a rustling wood. The wind was fresh with the breath of twilight; its withering blast died down with that last stinging gust of rain. And hounds were still running as swift as shadows, flickering far and fast.