Farmhouses began to reappear, thatched and
whitewashed, tucked snugly in among low bunches of trees; fences were
changing in character; the amber streams ran less fiercely, and found
time to loiter in pools and quiet reaches. The hounds had begun to
hunt more slowly, and Larry looked at his watch.
"Forty-five minutes since they left the glen! Bill's just about mad
enough for the asylum by this time!" he thought "If we could only
catch this lad!"
But this particular "lad" was not to gratify young Mr. Coppinger by
dying, classically, in the open, "on the top of the ground." Five
minutes after Larry had taken the time he took it again, this time at
the mouth of one of many holes in a sandpit, wherein, as was announced
by a country boy, "the lad" had saved himself, with "the dogs snapping
at his tail."
"He earned it well," said Larry, ungrudgingly, even though the mask
that was to have hung so carelessly from his saddle was panting deep
and safe in the sandpit, listening warily for a possible eviction
notice from the hunt-terrier (left, alas hunting rabbits in the heart
of Gloun Kieraun) thanking its own wits for the recollection of the
city of refuge.
"Ye're on the lands of Finnahy now," said the boy. "Folly on that way
down, and ye'll meet the road. That's the near way."
"Come on, you, and show it to me," said Larry.
Amazing were the ramifications of the near way.
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