At each moment the cry was becoming more remote, but it was still travelling on inside the wall. The fear of Flurry fell from us as a garment, and the only question that presented itself was whether to return to the West Gate or to hold on outside. It was a long-accepted theory at Castle Knox that the demesne wall was not negotiable, and that the foxes always used the gates, like Christians; bearing this in mind, I counselled the Front Gate and the outside of the wall. A couple of lanes favoured us; we presently found ourselves in a series of marshy fields, moving along abreast of the invisible hounds in the wood. They were in the thickest and least accessible part of it, and Flurry's voice and horn came faintly as from a distance. I explained that it was impossible to ride that part of the wood, but that, if they held on as they were going, the Front Gate would make it all right for us, and of course Flurry would---- "Oh! look, look, look!" shrieked Miss McRory, snatching at my arm and pointing with her whip. A short way ahead of us a huge elm tree had fallen upon the wall; the greenish-yellow leaves still clinging to its branches showed that the catastrophe was recent. It had broken down the wall to within five or six feet of the ground, and was reclining in the breach that it had made, with its branches sprawling in the field. I followed the line of Miss Larkie's whip, and was just in time to see a fox float like a red leaf from one of these to the ground, and glide straight across our front. He passed out of sight over a bank, and the Count stood up in his stirrups, put his finger in his ear, and screamed in a way that must have been heard in the next county. I contributed a not ineffective bellow, and Miss McRory decorated the occasion with long thin squeals. The hounds, inside the wall, answered in an agony that was only allayed by the discovery that the trunk of the tree formed as handy a bridge for them as for the fox. They came dropping like ripe fruit through the branches, and, under our rejoicing eyes, swarmed to the fox's line, and flung on, in the fullest of full-cry, over the bank on which we had last seen him. I have not failed to assure Flurry Knox that anything less suggestive of "sneaking away with the hounds" than the manner of our departure could hardly be conceived, but Mr. Knox has not withdrawn the phrase.