Half-Past Bedtime

by Sir H. H. Bashford

Then they crossed a road, and climbed over a stile, and skirted a great field pricked with tiny wheat-blades; and then they slipped down a rather steep bank into a sheltered lane still wet with mud. They had already forgotten old Mother Hubbard, and the next moment they forgot her still more; for just then there came clattering down the lane a young man on horseback, splashed to his eyes. His bowler hat was crammed down on his head, and he shouted at them as he galloped by. "Which way have they gone?" he cried, but he never stopped for an answer, and soon there came some more riders, both men and women. They had evidently come down the lane to avoid a big ploughed field that lay between high hedges on the other side of it, for Cuthbert and Doris presently saw them turn sharply to the right into a grass meadow where it was easier to gallop.

"It's the hunt," said Doris. "Let's run after them," so they turned and ran down the lane, and saw the riders, one by one, jumping over a gate on the far side of the meadow. Then they crossed the meadow and scrambled over the gate just in time to see the last of the horsemen disappearing over another hedge a couple of hundred yards away.

"We shall never catch them," said Cuthbert, but just then they heard a horn blowing. "It's the fox," cried Doris. "They've seen the fox," and half a minute later, from a little rise in the ground, they saw the whole hunt streaming away from them.

They were so hot now that they had forgotten all about the wind and the grey clouds gathering over the downs, and their only thought was to be up among the horses and their jolly, red-cheeked riders. So they ran down the rise and across another road and over some more fields and past a wood, until they came at last to a stream, running rather sluggishly between some pollarded willows. On one of these there was a man standing, and he waved his hand to them as they came up.

"They're coming back," he said. "Keep along the stream, and I'll lay a dollar you'll see some fun."

It was now nearly four, and the light was beginning to fade, and they were ever so far from Uncle Joe's; but they pushed their way through the tangled grass until they came to a plank across the stream. This led them out beside a hazel copse, and just as they were wondering which way to go they heard the horn again, not very far away, and the clear, deep calling of the hounds. Something cold fell on Cuthbert's cheek.

"Hullo!" he said, "it's beginning to snow." And then a burly man on a big grey mare came crashing through the undergrowth on the other side of the stream. He gave a shout, and they jumped aside as his horse rose to clear the water; but the next moment he was sprawling on the ground in front of them, with his scarlet coat about his ears.

They heard him swear, but as he picked himself up and helped his horse out of the stream he began to laugh, and soon he was in the saddle again and vanishing into the dusk. For a minute or two they waited, but nobody else came. An old cock pheasant rattled out of the hazel copse. The horn blew once more, and then all was still. Their breath stood like smoke upon the air.

Then Doris suddenly stooped and picked up a coin that had been half trampled into the bank.

"Hullo!" she said, "he's dropped a penny. You'd better add the date of it to your collection."