“Ay! a gurt grey-hound fox.”
“How long since?”
“Seven minutes.”
Seven minutes, and hounds racing like this! Will they never check?—no, they never will, and some will never return to the kennel again. The Abbey is passed in one hour and twenty minutes from the find, with only one momentary check, and the mountain beyond looks impossible to negotiate. I cross the stream, and begin the ascent with a few tail hounds. They have shot their bolt, and are struggling on with bloodshot eyes, dropping into my wake as I pass them.
“Come on, Jack! You must do it.”
“I can’t. Look at Sligo.”
Sligo was standing rocking at the foot of the hill, with his back up and staring eye—he was completely done. Could I get up to that sky-line where the last trailing hounds were disappearing? It looked desperate, but Faraway did it, and now I must give him a minute. I had dismounted the last twenty yards to pull him up the top edge of the scar. I could see about eleven couple filing away along the ridge of the moor half a mile ahead. Absolutely nothing but range after range of barren moors was now in sight! Where was this strange fox bound for? I was astonished to find my horse still full of going, as I got on to the ridge and on to sound ground, and in a few minutes I was alongside the leading seven couple. Hounds now bore along for the Farndale head moors, and one by one the stragglers gave up the chase. Now and then one of these would pull up all at once. I saw the veteran Hermit roll into the heather, where he was found cold and dead next day. Still the leading bunch held on, and Wrangle (from the Oakley) is driving away first, followed closely by Statesman, Bajazet, Rascal, and Ringwood. As they crossed a boggy slack, I strained my eyes to see this terrible fox; it was impossible he could stand up many minutes more. I felt for my knife—but the end is not to be yet. The thought uppermost in my mind is, what a wonder my horse is! Is it possible for any animal to survive this? and yet he is going strong. The moors look endless; I can see, even in the fast-deepening dusk, miles of desolation in front.
A turn to the right, and we reach the edge of the hillside above Ingleby. Down the rocks and the cliff-side dash the now only seven couple, and once more open into cry. The pace on the moor was too great for much speaking. I cannot get down there. I make a despairing effort to cross a bog at the top—I cannot do it. The north wind is blowing a cloud of spray from the dripping bog at the edge of the cliff, and the stars are coming out. I see beyond me an abandoned workman’s shanty, and my mind is made up. The door is locked; a good kick and it is open. In the inside there is just room for my horse. The ceiling is low, but so is now his head. I shut the door and run as fast as top-boots will allow along the edge of the cliff to the top of Midnight Crags. Here I hear the hounds still running some hundred of feet below me in the darkness. I labour on, till, exhausted, I sit down above the pass into Bilsdale. I can still hear them occasionally, in spite of the wind howling up the gully, and then all is still. I wait some minutes, then halloo with all my might. They have either killed or run to ground, but wherever it is, I cannot reach them.
Eventually five and a half couples came to me, and I floundered and blundered over the moor to my horse. I had not a match, so as to examine the mouths of the hounds, but, as far as I could judge, they had not killed. I could find no blood—perhaps if they had run into him they had not managed to do more than just kill. I drained my flask, and led my horse down the Ingleby incline, reaching at length Ingleby village.
When I got to the inn, to my surprise, there was Bob Brunton, who, having lost all trace of us in Kildale, whither he had tracked us, had ridden on here with Richard Spink of the Bilsdale, where, night overtaking them, they had sought shelter and refreshment. Bob, on seeing me, literally hugged me, and swore I ought to be knighted. We got the hounds bedded in a barn and fed, and my horse gruelled, and then I jogged home—but sleep was banished by aching limbs, and the excitement of the day. All night I saw the whole scene enacted over again. The streaming ten couple always tearing and racing on as if for ever over valley and lonely moor. I felt my horse floundering through the bogs again; myself clambering up and down those gills under the stars—each wall and stream, gate and stile were jumped a dozen times. I could see again the straggling hounds, run out, sitting in the heather, and hear their dismal howling as they realised they were “done” and “lost.”