The wild freshness of the morning, with its bright sunshine, had given place to frost, and men settled grimly down to their work with the conviction that with such a burning scent and an afternoon fox few would live with hounds to the finish.
The field was never a large one from the start. None but those who got away at once had a chance of seeing the run, for the first mile was ridden at racing pace over a lovely grass country, with nothing to stop hounds or men save low stone walls, over which they slipped without a rattle like the phantoms of a dream. Amongst those still with hounds at the end of the first mile were the two ladies and the master. Polly's red jacket had followed George Vernon as the needle follows the magnet--a little too closely, perhaps, for the comfort of the magnet. Kate had been in trouble on the right, her old horse, fresh and mad with excitement and out of temper with the long restraint of the morning, had got his ears laid flat back and the bit in his teeth.
For the moment the temperate habits of past years were forgotten, and poor Kate, with arms aching and powerless, felt herself flashing over stout stone walls at a pace which would have been dangerous over sheep hurdles.
Polly's chestnut, on the contrary, was behaving in a manner which would have done credit to the best horse in Galway or with the Heythrop, steadying himself at every wall and popping over with the least possible exertion to himself or risk to his rider.
And now five of the "pursuers" were in one field, grass beneath their feet and a fair stone wall without a gap in it in front.
All except Polly probably noticed the rushes which grew in tiny bunches beneath the wall, and guessed from them and from the sudden dip of the land that the take-off would be a boggy one.
In vain Kate tried to get a pull at her horse. On the left Vernon and Polly had got over with a scramble. One man was down, and a second felt that the roan was worth another fifty at least for the way he kicked himself clear of the dirt.
With a rush which would have landed him well on the other side of twenty feet of water, the brown went at the highest place he could find in the wall. Kate knew what must come, but hardened her heart and faced it. As the old horse tried to rise, he stuck in the heavy bog. There was a crash; for a moment everything spun round, and Kate was down with a stunning fall.