n they have had
enough.

A narrow, stony passage, more resembling a drain than a lane, ran
round the wood; the riders hustled along it, like a train in a
cutting, too tightly packed for the most vindictive kicker to injure
his neighbour, too hampered by impeding rocks to make more speed than
can be accomplished by a jog. The drain ended at a V-shaped fissure
between two slants of rock, and, by the time the last horse had
clattered and scrambled up it, the hounds were away again, steering
up, across heathery fields, enclosed by fences and stone walls of all
sorts and sizes, for a great double-headed hill on the sky-line, three
or more miles away.

"Carrigaholt as usual!" said Major Dick, over his shoulder, to the
Hon. Sec., young Kirby of Castle Ire. "If you get a chance, try and
head him off the western rocks--and Bill! Tell those infernal
children of mine they're to keep with Charles and look out for bogs!"

His conscience as a parent thus appeased, the Master applied himself
to the no small task of keeping his hounds in sight, and of evading
the equal difficulties presented by rocks and bog holes. The offspring
in question were now, with Larry, in comparative and undesired safety
beneath the fluttering wing of Charles, and Bill Kirby, having
faithfully delivered his message, found himself immediately adopted as
an alternative protector, and repented him of his fidelity.

The hounds stormed on through the hills, running hard across the
frequent boggy tracts, more slowly, and with searchings, over the
intervening humps of rock and furze. The fox was making a well-known
point, and running a well-known line, but the fences in their infinite
variety, defied the staling force of custom, and the difficulties of
the going were intensified by the pace. The hounds gained at length
the ridge of the high country, and as they flitted along the skyline,
the riders, labouring among the rocks, skirting the bogs, pounding at
the best pace they could raise over the intervals of heather and
grass, felt that their hold on the hunt had become distinctly
insecure.

"'Christian dost thou see them?'" quoted Larry, kicking his heels into
the bay cob's well-covered ribs without effect, "for I don't!"

"They'll check at Carrigaholt," called back Bill Kirby; "that'll be
our chance--"

They were far up on the slope of the hills now; the country swung in
long, dipping lines, down to the Vale of the Broadwater, and spread,
in great and ge