Barnaby Part 25

"It appears you don't know how to manage a husband," he said. "Don't look so sorrowful. _I_ don't mind them.--And the general public is anxious to lend a hand."

They rode soberly side by side, over the noisy cobbles, down to the low white bridge thronged with pedestrians, threading their way amidst the stream that was turning in at the gates farther on to the right.

"We'll keep on, shall we?" said Barnaby. "Hounds will be moving directly, and there'll be a fearful crowd getting out of the Park."

So they held on between the lines of townsfolk and, turning upward, fell in with a cl.u.s.ter of hors.e.m.e.n on the watch, loitering on the hill.

"Awful bore, meeting in the town like this," said one of these peevishly. His horse was eyeing a perambulator strangely, and there was no s.p.a.ce for antics. "Why do the Quorn do it?"

"Oh, it pleases the mult.i.tude."

There was a roar down below, and a scuffling noise as of hundreds running. Above the bobbing heads pa.s.sed a glimpse of scarlet, as a whip issued from the green gates, clearing a way for hounds that were hidden from view in the middle of the throng. Barnaby turned his horse round.

"Come on," he said. "We'll wait for them out of the town. I suppose it's the customary pilgrimage? Gartree Hill."

Behind them, louder and louder, drowning the tumult, came the quickening tramp of horses. Their own animals grew excited.

"Sit him tight!" said Barnaby. Her horse had nearly bucked into the last lamp-post at the top of the hill. He would not wait peaceably at the corner, so she took him a few yards farther on, straight over the brow, where the way was not street, but road, looking down upon open country.

"Hullo!" said Barnaby.

The fields that spread underneath were bare and wind-swept; there was no sign of life in them. But what was that brownish dab on the right?

Incredulously he watched it travelling up the furrow;--and, convinced, let out a wild yell that made their own horses jump.

"It's a fox!" he said. "It's a fox. Keep your eye on him, Susan, while I fetch them up."

He galloped back, waving his hat to hurry the startled host. The huntsman came swiftly over the hill, and a glance a.s.sured him; he touched his horn. In half a minute he and his hounds were scouring over the fields, and the riders who had been at the front were jumping out of the road.

"They've found. They are running!"

The cry was flung from lip to lip along the bewildered ranks that had closed up in expectation of the long jog to cover. A minute more and the crowd had burst like a scattered wave, far and wide.

Down the slope; up a rise; in and out of a lane defended by straggling blackthorn; dipping over the skyline; the pack was gone. Only the quickest could live with them, only the first away had a chance of keeping up in the run. They were just a handful as they landed over a stake-and-bound into a rolling pasture, a great rough waste where the ridges rose up like billows, crosswise, submerging the horses that were shortening in their stride.

"Good for the liver!" groaned Kilgour, as he rocked up and down. "But what a sell for the crafty ones waiting on Gartree Hill!"

"They'll cut in with us at Great Dalby," said Barnaby, flinging a glance that side. The pack hung to the left, still flying.

"Not much!" said Kilgour. "D'you suppose the fox is stopping with Lydia Measures for a bottle of ginger beer?--What did I tell you?

There they go, wide of the village, over the Kirby lane----"

He broke off his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, pointing triumphantly with his whip, pushing on. A man of his build could not afford to lag behind, unlike those light-weights who could lie by and then come like a whirlwind and make it up. He must keep plodding on. But he took no shame to diverge suddenly to a gate. Let the young 'uns surmount that rasper.

On the high ground above a breathless horde struck in. Rumour, or the wind, or some saving instinct had warned them; they had come at a breakneck pace from their shivering watch elsewhere.

Susan, riding her hardest, with her chin up and rapture on her face, laughed as she heard the frantic thudding of that pursuit.

"They've missed a bit," cried Barnaby at her shoulder. Her horse was faster than his, but was tiring. She was glad to steady him as the pack ran into a strip of trees.

"What a scent!" said Barnaby. "Hark at them! They're sticking to him;--they're driving him up the Pastures!"

He swung round in his saddle, still keeping on. The rearguard, no longer in desperation, were trooping contentedly down the road.

"They'll get left," he said. "They reckon on losing him. Silly a.s.ses, they're lighting their cigarettes!"

Slower, but steadily, hounds were running up the wood. Their cry increased in volume, vociferous, echoing in the trees. It sounded a hundred times louder than in the open. And this time there was no changing foxes; they drove him too hard. Out he went at the top, and had no time to twist and turn in again; they were on his heels. Beyond was a steep drop into a village, and then a long struggle, and another drop to a ford. As the last of them were splashing through the water, the first of them were swinging out of their saddles and turning their horses' heads to the wind. They had run to Baggrave, and killed their fox in the Park.

"Three cheers for Barnaby and his outlier," said Kilgour. "That was no poultry-s.n.a.t.c.her, but a real beetle-fed warrior. What the d.i.c.kens shall we do next?"

"Oh, get up in a tree, somebody, like Sister Anne; and rake the horizon for second horses!"

Susan knew that voice. It was Rackham.

"Get up yourself," said Kilgour. "Your history isn't sound. _I_ don't trust my weight on anything but a watch-tower."

Susan had turned away her face; she did not want to have to acknowledge Rackham, although he had no shame in approaching her. Nervously she plunged into a rapid argument with Kilgour, whose broad and comfortable presence was a kind of buckler. But through it all she was conscious of him, she heard his voice. He and Barnaby were arranging something about a horse. She did not catch the drift of it, but Rackham turned to her pointedly and asked her opinion.

"I wasn't listening," she said. His glance was penetrating; she could not escape it, and recollection burnt in her cheek. She heard Barnaby whistle suddenly to himself.

Hounds were moving at last, not hurrying, but drifting across the park, searching as they went; and second hors.e.m.e.n were springing up out of nowhere. Those who were lucky were changing horses. Already it was far on in the afternoon.

"That's the worst of beginning so late," said Kilgour. "The day's gone before you know it. And here we've been dawdling, munching.... Now we'll just get away with the twilight after dodging backwards and forwards for an hour or two between the Prince of Wales's and Barkby Holt."

"Shut up, ill prophet!" said Barnaby, as they gathered close in to the cover-side. Already there was a whimper.

But it was late before the prophesied shilly-shallying came to its appointed end, and those who had resisted the false alarms, sticking patiently on guard at a windy corner, saw a fox break at last. A misleading holloa had drawn off the field; they were ma.s.sing on the other side, out of sight, out of hearing in the rising wind that carried away with it the warning note of the horn. And hounds were slipping out like lightning.

"Come on!" said Barnaby. This time there was no mistake.

It didn't matter that there was a rival shout behind the dense thicket.

Let those who liked it exclaim that the pack was divided, and miss a run to hang skirmishing for ever and ever about the Holt.... They had a fox away, and at least half the hounds were on him as he dipped the rise and went spinning into the infinite. Just a handful of riders they were, but high-hearted, as they turned their faces towards the dim red line of the sinking sun.

Miles and miles they seemed to go swinging on. Behind a grey church, round a silent village, and under a rustling wood. The wind was fresh with the breath of twilight; its withering blast died down with that last stinging gust of rain. And hounds were still running as swift as shadows, flickering far and fast.

One by one the rest of them had fallen back; had steadied their faltering horses and listened, beaten. Susan could hardly see the fences as they came up, darker and darker against the sky. But her horse rushed at them gallantly, and she had Barnaby to follow. Hounds were invisible now, but near; their cry was fierce behind that clump of trees, impenetrable but for one glimmering gap of light.

"They're running him still!" called Barnaby, plunging in.

His voice was all she wanted. She could not ask more of Heaven than this one gallop; and all her life she would remember that she had ridden it out with him....

They had to ride warily through the trees, feeling their way, trusting in their horses. Here the path was deep and boggy, there water trickled, and the boughs hung low, swishing against them as they went by. Birds whirred restlessly in the creaking branches, and an owl flew shrieking in front of them. When they emerged from that eerie pa.s.sage everything had grown weird and strange in the cheating dusk.

"That's the horn," said Barnaby. "He's calling them off. Doesn't it sound unearthly?--There they are. Listen.... Listen.... They're running him in the dark!"

Far away on the hillside a light twinkled suddenly, turning the twilight land into darkness as the first star makes it night in the sky.

Barnaby laughed. "That was a hunt!" he said. "Hark! he's stopped them. We'll have to find our way out of this. Why, we can't see each other's faces.... Let's keep on a bit up this hedge-side, and perhaps we'll get into a bridle-road."