Looking about, he saw others coming down the hill; two men in rat-catcher, a woman on a grey, a man in a dark coat piloting three little girls on ponies.
“I’d forgotten about that,” Frampton said. “It’s what they call the opening meet of the hunting season here. They’re fox-hunters. They meet at a cross-roads just below there. Like to see ’em?”
“I sure would,” the young man said. “I’ve heard tell about fox-hunters, and when I was a kid, I’d a book about them. They don’t do it in my part of the States. Any hunting in my part gets done with a gun.”
Frampton looked at his watch.
“We’re late,” he said. “They’ll be off. But we’ll get glasses and see something. As a matter of fact, I want to see what they do.”
They quickened their pace; it was twenty-past eleven. Frampton went into the hall of
Before they reached the summer-house, the sun came out; they looked down on a transfigured scene. Plainly, the Tunsters had rallied to the opening meet; the countryside was full of people. The lanes were populous with riders and with cars trying to get past them. Riders, in scarlet or black or rat-catcher, were slowly moving along to what they thought might be good places. There were country people together at every gate and stile. Little companies of bicyclists, male and female, were coming in from Stubbington, or moving out, so as to forestall the hounds. At Tibb’s Cross, the lanes were jammed with cars, and to Frampton’s rage, there were dozens of people, riders and walkers, strolling in his field, between the Cross and the Wood.
“Look at the swine,” he said, “in my field, as bold as be damned.”
The American looked at him questioningly, not understanding why he was vexed. The next instant there came a cheer, a repeated triple cheer, from the crowd at the Cross, and then, on the second of the three cheers, as Frampton got his glass focussed on the scene, the huntsman of the Tunster came through the gate which Frampton had locked and wired only the day before. The gate was wide open; the huntsman rode through it, with a trailing thong. Frampton could see the jerk on his lips as he said: “Hounds, gemmen, hounds.” That was the thing they were cheering, the rape of the gate. At the hunter’s heels came the famous pack of the Tunsters, all alive and alert and wild for the quarry.
“My Golly,” Frampton said, “they’ve broken my gate and are going to draw Spirr. My crumpet, but I’ll stop them.”
He was white and wild with rage. “Come on down,” he said.
He saw some rooks and two magpies come out of Spirr and go away. He saw, at once, that he could not possibly reach the covert in time. The lane just below was blocked with cars and people; three hundred people: he could not get through that press in time. He called again to the young man to come on down. He had some vague notion of braining Annual-Tilter, if he were there, with his binoculars. They had not gone three strides before the huntsman tooted with his horn. In an instant, the pack gave tongue, the whole pack was in cry. They were going off straight at the Spirr Wood fence. Nearly three-quarters of a ton of expensive dog went over the fence into the wood with a crash which Frampton plainly heard, with their huntsman beside them. All the crowd at the Cross cheered and cheered again; then instantly the riders at the Cross and in the fields were in motion, hats were being jammed down and cigars flung away, and the trembling horses put to it. There was a surge northwards from all the company. All Spirr rang with the excitement of the pack, the toots of the horn, and the View Halloos from the farther fence.
“Gee, that’s a great sight,” the young man said.