A gentleman in red who came up at that moment, pretending to have his eyes fixed on the hounds leaping and scrambling into the thicket, but really with a view to study our two girls’ costume, bent forward and said with a smile,—
‘I think you are under a mistake; Hark is not the name of any dog, it’s only a way of sending hounds in to thread the cover and turn out a fox if there is one.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Miss Blemmyketts; ‘and do you think there is one in this little place?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ he replied; ‘but we shall know in a minute or two. Ah, I thought so—blank,’ he added, as a single short note on the horn came from the other side of the cover.
‘What’s blank, sir?’ asked Miss Blemmyketts.
‘Drawn blank; that is, there’s no fox. Never mind, we shall find at Midham Leys, if we don’t before.’
‘Pray, is it far to Midham Leys?’ inquired Lesbia.
‘Why, yes, it’s nearly three miles. You can just see the top of the wood over the rising ground. There are several little spinnies to be drawn on the way; if we don’t find in them, we’re sure, at all events, at the big wood. I’ve hunted twenty years over this country, and never knew Midham Leys drawn blank yet.’
The trot was resumed until they reached the first of the spinnies; it was tedious work the drawing blank of one little copse after another, but the popping over gaps out of the lane which it entailed, settled our two girls in their saddles and wore away their nervousness. They were among the first to enter the long straggling wood of Midham Leys when at last it was reached, between one and two o’clock. They entered through a narrow hand-gate, and after traversing some three hundred yards of wet deep slough called a ride, they were arrested by the halt of the column of horsemen of which they formed part; the master, who now pushed to the
