among its rushes; while the
keen, easterly wind blew over the meadows, and the pack streamed
along like the white trail of a plume. Cecil "showed the way" with the
self-same stride and the self-same fencing as had won him the Vase. Lady
Guenevere and the Seraph were running almost even with him; three of the
Household farther down; the Zu-Zu and some Melton men two meadows off;
the rest of the field, nowhere. Fifty-two minutes had gone by in that
splendid running, without a single check, while the fox raced as gamely
and as fast as at the find; the speed was like lightning past the brown
woods, the dark-green pine plantations, the hedges, bright with scarlet
berries; through the green low-lying grasslands, and the winding drives
of coverts, and the boles of ash-hued beech trunks, whose roots the
violets were just purpling with their blossom; while far away stretched
the blue haze of the distance, and above-head a flight of rooks cawed
merrily in the bright air, soon left far off as the pack swept onward in
the most brilliant thing of the hunting year.

"Water! Take care!" cried Cecil, with a warning wave of his hand as
the hounds, with a splash like a torrent, dashed up to their necks in
a broad, brawling brook that Reynard had swam in first-rate style, and
struggled as best they could after him. It was an awkward bit, with
bad taking-off and a villainous mud-bank for landing; and the water,
thickened and swollen with recent rains, had made all the land that
sloped to it miry and soft as sponge. It was the risk of life and limb
to try it; but all who still viewed the hounds, catching Bertie's shout
of warning, worked their horses up for it, and charged toward it as
hotly as troops charge a square. Forest King was over like a bird;
the winner of the Grand Military was not to be daunted by all the
puny streams of the Shires; the artistic riding of the Countess landed
Vivandiere, with a beautiful clear spring, after him by a couple of
lengths: the Seraph's handsome white hunter, brought up at a headlong
gallop with characteristic careless dash and fine science mingled,
cleared it; but, falling with a mighty crash, gave him a purler on the
opposite side, and was within an inch of striking him dead with his hoof
in frantic struggles to recover. The Seraph, however, was on his legs
with a rapidity marvelous in a six-foot-three son of Anak, picked up
the horse, threw himself into saddle, and dashed off again quick
as lightnin