For some time the scene was an animated one, as every Fleming seemed to pin his faith on some favourite dog; and it was rather amusing to witness the eagerness with which each followed the movements of his adopted animal, cheering him on, and encouraging him to the top of his bent. At last the word ‘Away’ was given, and suddenly the dogs broke cover, and made across the plain in the direction of a great wood, or rather forest, above a mile off. The country, happily for most of us (I know it was so for me), was an open surface of gentle undulation, stubble and turnips the only impediments, and clay soft enough to make a fall easy. The sight was so far exhilarating that red coats in a gallop have always a pleasant effect; besides which, the very concourse of riders looks well. However, even as unsportsmanlike an eye as mine could detect the flaws in jockeyship about me--the fierce rushings of the gentlemen who pushed through the deepest ground with a loose rein, flogging manfully the while; the pendulous motions of others between the mane and the haunches, with every stride of the beast. But I had little time for such speculations; the hour of my own trial was approaching. The roan was getting troublesome, the pace was gradually working up her mettle; and she had given three or four preparatory bounds, as though to see whether she’d part company with me before she ran away or not. My own calculations at the moment were not very dissimilar; I was meditating a rupture of the partnership too. The matrix of a full-length figure of Arthur O’Leary in red clay was the extent of any damage I could receive, and I only looked for a convenient spot where I might fall unseen. As I turned my head on every side, hoping for some secluded nook, some devil of a hunter, by way of directing the dogs, gave a blast of his brass instrument about a hundred yards before me. The thing was now settled; the roan gave a whirl of her long vicious tail, plunged fearfully, and throwing down her head and twisting it to one side, as if to have a peep at my confusion, away she went. From having formed one of the rear-guard, I now closed up with the main body--‘aspirants’ all--through whom I dashed like a catapult, and notwithstanding repeated shouts of ‘Pull in, sir!’ ‘Hold back!’ etc, I continued my onward course; a few seconds more and I was in the thick of the scarlet coats, my beast at the stretch of her speed, and caring nothing for the bridle. Amid a shower of _sacrés_ that fell upon me like hail, I sprang through them, making the ‘red ones’ black with every stroke of my gallop. Leaving them far behind, I flew past the _grand maître_ himself, who rode in the van, almost upsetting him by a side spring, as I passed--a malediction reaching me as I went; but the forest soon received me in its dark embrace, and I saw no more.