Apparently they had not found, any
more than the rich man in the parable, a means of crossing it. He was
high above the valley; the splendid landscape lay in broad undulating
ribbons of brown and green and amethyst and blue, with the Broadwater
dividing it--a silver belt, with a band of green on its either side;
but within the great circle that was spread beneath his eyes were none
of those toiling specks that tell of a Hunt in labour. The check was
brief; the hurrying hounds, busy as ants, cast themselves right and
left forward, combining in fussy groups, that would suddenly
disintegrate as if by an access of centrifugal force; crowding each
other jealously along the top of a bank, flopping into the patches of
bog, snuffing greedily at the orange stems of the bracken. Soon,
reiterated squeals from a leading lady told that the clue was found
again, and they began to run, hard as before, but downwards this time,
as though the fox despaired of finding refuge among the high places of
heather and rock. Larry had lost his bearings; his eyes on the hounds,
his thoughts on his horse, he had not even tried to place himself. But
as the hounds ran on, south and west, he began to recognise familiar
features. Away there to the south, surely were the trees of
Coppinger's Court; could it be the Mount Music earths for which the
fox was heading? The hounds were running now down hill, through crisp,
upland meadows.
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