She was in a delightful green habit; she wore a plumy kind of hat; she rode an almost perfect little mare belonging to Lord Talgarth, and her big blue, steady eyes roved slowly round her as she went, seeing nothing.

It was, in fact, the almost perfect little mare who first gave warning of the approach to the sportsmen, by starting violently all over at the sound of a shot, fired about half a mile away.

Jenny steadied her, pulled her up, and watched between the cocked and twitching ears.
Below her, converging slowly upwards, away from herself, moved a line of dots, each precisely like its neighbor in color (Lord Talgarth was very particular, indeed, about the uniform of his beaters), and by each moved a red spot, which Jenny understood to be a flag.

The point towards which they were directed culminated in a low, rounded hill, and beneath the crown of this, in a half circle, were visible a series of low defenses, like fortifications, to command the face of the slope and the dips on either side.

This was always the last beat--in this moor--before lunch; and lunch itself, she knew, would be waiting on the other side of the hill.