Just after dinner everybody had heard the
horn sounding in the woods, with distant holloas and deep music of
hounds, and then the pack came streaming out in full cry, and next
moment all the horsemen were galloping over the fields and leaping the
hedges. The women ran forth from the back of the house; the men
abandoned their work. "Oo, oo! Look an' look." There were shouts of
rapture each time the horses jumped. "Oo! Crimany! That _were_ a
beauty!"
Then in another minute Dale himself came galloping to the empty yard,
rode his horse along the flags into the garden, and yelled to Mavis
that she was to fetch trays of bread and cheese and bannocks as quick
as life.
"An' bring the white bob full of beer--an' whisky, an' water--an' some
o' the sloe gin; an' devel knows how many glasses."
Mrs. Dale and Mary, before one could look round, carried out into the
yard all these light refreshments, and with them Dale regaled the
large concourse of unexpected visitors that was pouring through the
opened gates. His guests were grooms, second-horsemen, one or two
farmers, and several dealers--the people who are rarely in a hurry
when out hunting; and after them came pedestrians, a sturdy fellow in
a red coat with a terrier in his pocket and a terrier under his arm, a
keeper, a wood-cutter, Abraham Veale the hurdle-maker, and just
riffraff--the very tail of the hunt, and, as the tail of the tail,
that stupid trade-neglecting Mr.
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