For about half an hour now the pace was awful.

We rode side by side, taking our leaps at exactly the same instant, and not four feet apart.

The hounds were still considerably in advance, and were heading towards the Shannon, when suddenly the fox doubled, took the hillside, and made for Dangan.

"Now, then, comes the trial of strength," I said, half aloud, as I threw my eye up a steep and rugged mountain, covered with wild furze and tall heath, around the crest of which ran, in a zigzag direction, a broken and dilapidated wall, once the enclosure of a deer park.

This wall, which varied from four to six feet in height, was of solid masonry, and would, in the most favorable ground, have been a bold leap.