Harold Keefe bound a blue-and-white check silk handkerchief round his leg and consulted Mrs. Weston as to hydrophobia. He was faintly sulky when she took no notice, her bright blue eyes fixed excitedly on the rustling gorse.
"He is away!" Darby darted along the edge of the gorse. "Away just outside the fence. Blow, sir, blow them out! God save us alive! look at that!"
For at that moment Grandjer, with a stout cub firmly clamped between his jaws, leapt over the bank, and putting the limp little beast down, commenced to worry it.
"Didn't I tell ye Grandjer was the dog?" screamed Andy, flying out. "He is thrackin' that one now since the commincemint, an' never left him."
"We'll have to break this one up, then, I suppose," said Darby. "We must do the right thing."
Grandjer worried and growled and tore. He was screened from view by a big stone and a clump of brambles.
"He will ate it be himself," said Andy. "Do ye go afther the ould fox, sir; none'll know."
Darby looked at Barty, and Barty grinned.
"Be the time someone is bit getting away the fox, the other one'll be at Durra," he whispered. "And why should we lose a hunt acclimatizing this lot to do right, when, with the help of God, the Kayser'll be dead and our own hounds out again next October?"
"But," said Darby, "well, then. Forrard on!"
"He won't ate it all," said Andy. "He'll tiren, an' unless Mr. Keefe bein' bit already wouldn't so much mind another, I'd say whoever went to take it'd get a quare nip."
"Toot" went Darby's horn. "Shrr," George Freyne's whistle. A grating gurgle emanated from Keefe. Slowly hounds dribbled out, but surely, everyone hunting. When he got three couple together, Darby went away, wondering vaguely if he would ever see any of the other which was still conscientiously towling and yowling in covert.
Home Ruler, distantly related to a deer-hound, could travel; she flung herself on the line, with Beauty close behind and Greatness yowling joyously.
Grandjer, finding his fox high and tough, especially as there was no one to dispute it with him, picked up his kill and galloped in pursuit of the charge.
The fox had been gone some time, and scent, the mysterious, was not too good. Home Ruler, dashing light-heartedly in front, threw up her big head suddenly. The remainder of the pack, all hunting zealously, towled into view, coming undisturbed through the horses. Grandjer dropped his cub and galloped down to his companions. It was his sharp yap which rang out as he passed Home Ruler and spoke on the line. Then "Yow-Ow," the long-drawn musical harrier notes, as at a fair pace they pressed on. The going was light on the top of the hill, the banks fair and sound. What matter if Dandy's pup was leading, his docked stump quivering! They were hunting. Slowly but surely they dipped into Durra, a big place in a hollow, and circled round it until it was evident that the unpressed fox had gone back to covert.