Page:Yeast. A Problem - Kingsley (1851).djvu/27

 But, no; on and on—down the wind and down the vale; and the canter became a gallop, and the gallop a long straining stride; and a hundred horse-hoofs crackled like flame among the stubbles, and thundered fetlock-deep along the heavy meadows; and every fence thinned the cavalcade, till the madness began to stir all bloods, and with grim earnest silent faces, the initiated few settled themselves to their work, and with the colonel and Lancelot at their head, took their pleasure sadly, after the manner of their nation,' as old Froissart has it.

till the rolling grass-lands spread out into flat black open fallows, crossed with grassy baulks, and here and there a long melancholy line of tall elms, while before them the high chalk ranges gleamed above the mist like a vast wall of emerald enamelled with snow, and the winding river glittering at their feet.

'A polite fox!' observed the colonel. 'He's leading the squire straight home to Whitford, just in time for dinner.'

They were in the last meadow, with the stream before them. A line of struggling heads in the swollen and milky current showed the hounds' opinion of Reynard's course. The sportsmen galloped off towards the nearest bridge. Bracebridge