Follow My leader Part 59

"Forward!" shouted everybody.

And the hunt was begun.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

HOW OUR HEROES MAKE THEIR RECORD.

If I were a poet, I should, at this point, pause to invoke Diana, Apollo, Adonis, and the other deities who preside over the chase, to aid me in describing the famous and never-to-be-forgotten run of the Templeton Harriers that early autumn afternoon. How they broke in full cry out of the fields up on to the free downs. How, with the fresh sea scent in their faces, they scoured the ridge that links Templeton with Blackarch, and Blackarch with Topping. How at the third mile they cried off inland, and plunged into the valley by Waly's bottom and Bardie's farm, through the pleasant village of Steg, over the railway, and along the fringe of Swilford Wood, to the open heath beyond. How half the hunt was out of it before they went up the other side of the valley, and scattered the gravel on the top of Welkin Beacon. How those who were left dropped thence suddenly on Lowhouse, and swam the Gurgle a mile above the ford. How from Lowhouse they swerved eastward, and caught the railway again at Norton Cutting. How they lost the scent in Durdon Copse, but found it again where the wood and the gravel pits met. How the six who stayed in blistered their feet after that on the gritty high road, till Cresswell hallooed them over the hedge, and showed them the scent down the winding banks of the Babrook. And once again, how they dived into the queer hamlet of Little Madd.i.c.k, and saw the very loaf and round of cheese off which the hares had s.n.a.t.c.hed a hasty meal not five minutes before. How Mansfield and Cresswell made a vow to taste neither meat nor drink till they had run their quarry down; and how the ever- diminishing pack sighted the hares just out of Madd.i.c.k, going up the Bengle Hill. Over Bengle Hill, down into the valley beyond, and up the shoulder of Blackarch ridge, how they toiled and struggled, till once more the sea burst on to their view, and the salt breezes put new life into their panting frames. How along the ridge and down towards Grey Harbour the leaders gained on the hares, hand-over-hand. And how, at last, in that final burst along the hard, dry sand, the hares were caught gloriously, half a mile from home, after one of the fastest runs Templeton had ever recorded.

But my muse must curb her wings, and descend from poetry to prose, in order to narrate the particular adventures of our three modest heroes.

For the first half-mile, be it said to their glory, they led the hunt.

Being convinced that their only hope was to get a good start, and shake off the field from the very beginning, they dashed to the front on Cresswell's cry of "Forward!" at the rate of ten miles an hour, and for five minutes showed Templeton the way.

Then occurred one of those lamentable disasters which so often befall youthful runners on the exhaustion of their first wind: Coote's shoe- lace came undone! That was the sole reason for his pulling up. To say that he was blown, or that the pace was hard on him was adding insult to calamity; and doubtless the redness of his countenance as he knelt down to make fast the truant lace was solely due to indignation at the possibility of such a suggestion.

d.i.c.k and Heathcote, as they stood one on each side of him, really thankful for the pause, professed to be highly impatient at the delay.

"Come on," said d.i.c.k, "here they all come."

"What a brutal time you take to do up that beastly lace!" cried Georgie, "we might have been in the next field by this time."

"I think it will hold now," said Coote, rising slowly to his feet, as the pack came up in full cry.

"Blown already, youngsters?" asked Cresswell. "Better go home."

"We're not blown at all," said d.i.c.k, trotting on abreast of the whipper- in; "Coote's lace came undone, that was all."

"Yes; we should have been in the next field if it hadn't," said the owner of the luckless lace.

The Harriers smiled, and for a minute or two the pack swung in an even line across the field.

Then Coote, anxious not to crowd anyone, let half a dozen or so of the Fifth go in front; and d.i.c.k and Georgie, generously considering that it would be rather low to leave their short-winded comrade in the lurch, dropped behind the leading rank in order to be nearer him.

In a minute more all anxiety Coote may have felt as to crowding any one was at an end. He was a yard or two in the rear of the last man, with a st.i.tch in his side, beginning in his inmost soul to wonder whether the new "Sociables" Club was such a very good thing after all.

d.i.c.k and Georgie, as they gradually sacrificed their prospect of being in at the death, and fell back to the support of their ally, waxed very contemptuous of st.i.tch in a fellow's side. They knew what it meant. It was a pity Coote had started if he was liable to that sort of thing.

His st.i.tch had cost the "Firm" a whole field already. However, they were not selfish; they must back him up even if it meant coming in at the tail of the hunt; though, to be sure, the pace Mansfield, Cresswell, and a few others were going at was one which couldn't be kept up, and the "Firm," as soon as the st.i.tch was out, might be in the running after all.

By dint of persuasions, threats, and imputations, Coote's st.i.tch did come out; but before it was gone the last of the pack were seen going over the ridge.

"We're out of it," said Georgie, despondently.

"Not a bit of it," said d.i.c.k, who was getting his second wind and felt like holding on. "We're bound to pull up on them if Coote only keeps up."

So they held on gallantly.

They could not long keep up the fiction of being in the hunt. No amount of self-deception could persuade them, when the end of the straggling line of fellows going up the ridge was a clear half-mile ahead, that they were in it. Still every minute they held on they felt more like staying, and when they reflected that it was possible to run through the hunt without being in at the death, they took comfort, and determined Templeton should not say they had turned tail.

"We shall have to follow the scent now," said d.i.c.k, when the pack suddenly disappeared to view over the ridge. "Thank goodness, it's all white paper, and plenty of it. Come on, you fellows, we'll run it through yet."

"I feel quite fresh," said Coote, mopping his head with his handkerchief. "How far do you think we've gone--six miles?"

"Six! we've not done a mile and a half yet."

Coote put away his handkerchief, and gave the buckle of his running drawers a hitch; and the "Firm" settled down to business.

Having once found out their pace, and got their second wind, they felt comparatively comfortable. The scent lay true up the ridge, and as they rose foot by foot, and presently breasted the bluff nor'-wester, they felt like keeping it up for a week.

"Hullo, I say," cried Georgie, when the top of the ridge was gained, "there they go right under us; we might almost catch them by a short cut."

"Can't do it," said d.i.c.k, decisively. "We're bound to follow the scent, even if the hares doubled and came back across this very place."

"Would real harriers do that?" asked Coote. "If I was a real harrier, and saw the hare close to me, I'd go for him no matter what the scent was."

"All very well, you can't do it to-day--not if you want to get on the list," said d.i.c.k. "They've taken a sharp turn, though, at the bottom."

Trotting down a steep hill is not one of the joys of the chase, and our heroes, by the time they got to the level bottom, felt as bruised and shaken as if they had been in a railway accident.

However, a mile on the flat pulled them together again, and they plodded on by Bardie's Farm, where the scent became spa.r.s.e, and on to Steg where, for the first time since leaving Templeton, they came upon traces of their fellow-man.

The worthy inhabitants of Steg, particularly the junior portion of them, hailed our three heroes with demonstrations of friendly interest. They had turned out fully half an hour ago to see the main body of the hunt go by, and just as they were returning regretfully to their ordinary occupations, the cry of "Three more of 'em!" came as a welcome reprieve, and brought them back into the highway in full force.

Fond of their joke were the friendly youth of Steg, and considering the quiet life they led, their wit was none of the dullest.

"Hurrah! Here's three more hounds!"

"They's the puppies, I reckon."

"Nay, one of 'em's got the rickets, see."

"If they don't look to it, the hares will be round the world and catching them up."

"Hi! Mister puppy, you're going wrong; they went t'other way."

"Shut up!" cried d.i.c.k.

"Go and give your pigs their dinner," shouted Heathcote.

Coote contented himself with running through the village with his tongue in his cheek, and in another three minutes the trio were beyond earshot and shaking the dust of Steg from their feet.

"How many miles now?" asked Coote, with a fine effort to appear unconcerned at the answer, which he put down in his own mind at six or seven miles.

"Three and a half, about--put it on, you fellows."

It was a long trot along the springy turf outside Swilford Wood. Once or twice the scent turned in and got doubtful among the underwood, but it came out again just as often, and presently turned off on to the Heath.