Thunderclap's terribly fresh.
I've never known her like this.”
There was a long wait as the horn sounded in the heart of the wood.
Everyone stood at the corner of the big field, near a gate.
Everyone, that is to say, except Miss Ripon who some minutes ago had disappeared suddenly, indeed in the middle of a sentence, at full gallop towards Hetton hills.
After half an hour Jock said,
“They're calling hounds off.”
“Does that mean it's a blank?”
“I'm afraid so.”
“I hate this happening in our woods,” said Ben.
“Looks bad.”
Indeed the Pigstantons were already beginning to forget their recent hospitality and to ask each other what did one expect when Last did not hunt himself, and to circulate dark reports of how one of the keepers had been observed last week burying Something late in the evening.
They moved off again, away from Hetton.
Ben began to feel his responsibility.
“D'you think I ought to take the young gentleman home, sir?”
“What did Mr. Last say?”
“He said he could go as far as the covert. He didn't say which, sir.”
“I'm afraid it sounds as if he ought to go.”
“Oh, Mr. Grant-Menzies.”
“Yes, come along, Master John.
You've had enough for today.”
“But I haven't had any.”
“If you come back in good time today your dad will be all the more willing to let you come out another day.”
“But there mayn't be another day.
The world may come to an end.
Please, Ben.
Please, Mr. Grant-Menzies.”
“It is a shame they shouldn't have found,” said Ben.
“He's been looking forward to it.”
“Still I think Mr. Last would want him to go back,” said Jock.
So John's fate was decided; hounds went in one direction, he and Ben in another.
John was very near tears as they reached the main road.
“Look,” said Ben, to encourage him. “Here comes Miss Ripon on that nappy bay.
Seems as if she's going in, too.
Had a fall by the looks of her.”
Miss Ripon's hat and back were covered with mud and moss.
She had had a bad twenty minutes since her disappearance.
“I'm taking him away,” she said.
“I can't do anything with him this morning.”
She jogged along beside them towards the village.
“I thought perhaps Mr. Last would let me come up to the house and telephone for the car.
I don't feel like hacking him home in his present state.
I can't think what's come over him,” she added loyally. “He was out on Saturday.
I've never known him like this before.”
“He wants a man up,” said Ben.
“Oh, he's no better with the groom and daddy won't go near him,” said Miss Ripon, stung to indiscretion.
“At least … I mean … I don't think that they'd be any better with him in this state.”
He was quiet enough at that moment, keeping pace with the other horses.
They rode abreast, she on the outside with John's pony between her and Ben.
Then this happened: they reached a turn in the road and came face to face with one of the single decker, country buses that covered that neighbourhood.