When Cresswell arrived at the meet, he found our heroes the centres of attraction to the crowd who usually assembled to see the hounds "throw off." They bore their honours meekly, and affected an indifference they were far from feeling to the chaff and expostulations which showered upon them from all sides.
"All show off!" cried Gosse.

"They'll sit down and have a nap under the first hedge, and make believe they ran it through." "Come, youngsters," said Cartwright, "you've had a jolly little game.
Better go home and put on your trousers, and not try to be funny for too long together." "Is it true," said someone else, with a significant jerk of his head in the direction of the "Firm," "that the hares are going to make a twenty- mile run of it, instead of twelve ?" "Of course we go through Turner's field, where the mad bulls are ?" said another.
Our heroes began to think the delay in starting was getting to be criminal.

Everyone had turned up long ago.

Whatever was keeping the hunt from beginning?
Ah! there was Cresswell calling up the hares at last.

Thank goodness! Swinstead and Birket, _par nobile fratrum_, were old stagers in the Templeton hunts, and fellows knew, when they buckled on their scent bags and tied their handkerchiefs round their waists, that the Harriers would have their work cut out for them before the day was over.
"All ready ?" asked the whipper-in, taking out his watch.
"All serene!" "Off you go then!" And off went the hares at a long easy swing, out of the fields and up on to the breezy downs.
"Now then, Harriers, peel!" said the whipper-in, when the hares had disappeared from view, and his watch showed seven minutes to have elapsed.
Our heroes nervously obeyed the order, and confided their outer vesture to Aspinall's custody.
Then steeling their ears and hearts to the final sparks of chaff which greeted the action, they moved forward with the other hounds and waited Cresswell's signal to go.
It seemed ages before those three minutes crawled out.