Fence and double, hedge and brook, soon scattered the field; straying off far and wide, and coming to grief with lots of "downers," it grew select, and few but the crack men could keep the hounds in view.

"Catch 'em who can," was the one mot d'ordre, for they were literally racing; the line-hunters never losing the scent a second, as the fox, taking to dodging, made all the trouble he could for them through the rides of the woods.

Their working was magnificent, and, heading him, they ran him round and round in a ring, viewed him for a second, and drove him out of covert once more into the pastures, while they laid on at a hotter scent and flew after him like staghounds.
Only half a dozen were up with them now; the pace was tremendous, though all over grass; here a flight of posts and rails tried the muscle of the boldest; there a bullfinch yawned behind the blackthorn; here a big fence towered; there a brook rushed angrily among its rushes; while the keen, easterly wind blew over the meadows, and the pack streamed along like the white trail of a plume.

Cecil "showed the way" with the self-same stride and the self-same fencing as had won him the Vase.

Lady Guenevere and the Seraph were running almost even with him; three of the Household farther down; the Zu-Zu and some Melton men two meadows off; the rest of the field, nowhere.