Luttrel, who has been
fighting so hard with a refractory collar up to this that he has not
been able to edge in a word.

"Oh, I daresay!" says Branscombe, so ironically, that every one
concludes it will be useless to say anything further.

And now the business of the day is begun. Every one has settled him or
herself into the saddle and is preparing to make a day of it.

Two hours later many are in a position to acknowledge sadly that the day
they have made has not been exactly up to the mark. The various
positions of these many are, for the most part, more remarkable than
elegant. Some are reclining gracefully in a ditch; some are riding
dolefully homeward with much more forehead than they started with in the
morning; some, and these are the saddest of all, are standing forlorn in
the middle of an empty meadow, gazing helplessly at the flying tail of
the animal they bestrode only a short five minutes ago.

The field is growing decidedly thin. Lady Chetwoode, well to the front,
is holding her own bravely. Sir Guy is out of sight, having just
disappeared over the brow of the small hill opposite. Dicky Browne, who
rides like a bird, is going at a rattling pace straight over anything
and everything that comes in his way, with the most delightful
impartiality, believing, as he has never yet come a very violent
cropper, that the gods are on his side.

Roger and Dulce got a little way from the others, and are now riding
side by side across a rather hilly field. Right before them rises a
wall, small enough in itself, but in parts dangerous, because of the
heavy fall the other side, hidden from the eye by some brambles growing
on the top of the stone-work.

Lower down, this wall proves itself even more treacherous, hiding even
more effectually the drop into the adjoining field, which is here too
deep for any horse, however good, to take with safety. It is a spot well
known by all the sportsmen in the neighborhood as one to be avoided,
ever since Gort, the farmer, some years before, had jumped it for the
sake of an idle bet, and had been carried home from it a dead man,
leaving his good brown mare with a broken back behind him.

It would seem, however, that either ignorance or recklessness is
carrying one of the riders to-day towards this fatal spot. He is now
bearing down upon it with the evident intention of clearing the
traitorous wall and so gaining upon the hounds, who are streaming up the
hill beyond, unaware that