CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
HOW OUR HEROES MAKE THEIR RECORD.
If I were a poet, I should, at this point, pause to invoke Diana, Apollo, Adonis, and the other deities who preside over the chase, to aid me in describing the famous and never-to-be-forgotten run of the Templeton Harriers that early autumn afternoon.

How they broke in full cry out of the fields up on to the free downs.

How, with the fresh sea scent in their faces, they scoured the ridge that links Templeton with Blackarch, and Blackarch with Topping.

How at the third mile they cried off inland, and plunged into the valley by Waly's bottom and Bardie's farm, through the pleasant village of Steg, over the railway, and along the fringe of Swilford Wood, to the open heath beyond.

How half the hunt was out of it before they went up the other side of the valley, and scattered the gravel on the top of Welkin Beacon.