In the meantime vexation, confusion, and distress prevail for many a weary mile of rocky steep, tangled heather, and holding swamp. Here a good horse, floundering to the girths, emerges from the mire with a throbbing flank and staring eye that tell too plainly their own sad tale. His master, pretty well exhausted also in the struggle, standing hopelessly on foot, while friends and neighbours, in but little better plight, come labouring past, each man riding faster than his horse, and pointing eagerly forward to that distance he must never hope to reach. The last of the string, whose powers are dying out like the flame of a candle, sinks from a false and labouring trot to a reeling walk, which soon collapses in a dead stop. "I've shot my bolt too, neighbour!" says the defeated sportsman to his comrade in distress. "It's many a long day since we've seen such a brush as this over Exmoor, and I'd try to finish the run now in my boots, only I've grown so plaguy lusty for climbing these hills!" So they lead their horses homeward despondently enough, with many a longing, lingering look at those lessening forms that are yet far in rear of the actual chase, and many a speculation as to when it will end, what direction it will take, and who are the lucky ones with the hounds. There can be no run so good in reality as that which we lose in imagination when beaten off by exigencies of country or pace. Tancred and Tarquin are leading no longer. The grandson of the former, nearly an inch higher than himself, has come to the front, and for the first time since his puppyhood vindicates the purity of his lineage, and proves the staunch, determined qualities of his race. He has never hitherto run at head, but now, when the pace is best, he takes the scent from his grandsire by sheer force of nose and wind and speed. Not another hound in the pack can wrest from him his post of honour in the front; and it is a pity that John Garnet, who knows nothing about him, and cares as little, should be the only man near enough to mark the excellence of his performance. Were they but there to see it, the young hound's dash and style, tempered by undeviating steadiness in pursuit, would fill Abel's eyes with tears, and call forth a blessing from Parson Gale's lips! That keen sportsman is cursing volubly instead, though none the less does he take every advantage of ground, cut off every angle, and avoid every swamp in the line; therefore Cassock gallops steadily on at a fair, regulated pace, which neither increases nor decreases the disheartening interval between his rider and the hounds. "I would give five years of my life," mutters the Parson, "to be lifted up by some supernatural power and set down half-a-mile, just half-a-mile farther on!--ten to be riding that grey horse instead of the man who owns him! But the reckoning must come at last, and may my right hand wither at the wrist if I make it not the fuller and deadlier for every hour it is delayed!"