As she came to a bit of road where the land sloped away gently to her left, she saw the hounds--who, as Fullarton guessed, had changed their hare--in the fields below her. They had checked again, as they crossed the highway, and just where she stood, there was a broken rail in the fence. She could tell by the marks in the mud that they had gone over it at that spot. She had an excellent chance of seeing something of the sport yet, for Rocket was as fresh as when she had come out and the land between her and the hounds was all good grass. She turned her at the broken rail, riding quietly down the slope; then, once on the level ground of the strath, she set her going. She put field after field behind her; for though, on the flat, she could not see far ahead, the ground was wet and the hoof-prints were deep enough to guide her. Rocket could gallop, and, in spite of her recent sins, she began to think that she liked her better than ever. She had bought her on her own initiative, having taken a fancy to her at a sale, and had ridden her for more than a year. It was from her back that she had first seen Gilbert Speid at Garviekirk. Fullarton, while admitting her good looks, had not been enthusiastic, and Cecilia had said that she was too hot and tried to dissuade her from the purchase; she remembered that she had been very much put out with the girl at the time and had asked her whether she supposed her to be made of anything breakable. Her niece had said ‘no,’ but added that she probably would be when she had ridden the mare. Cecilia could be vastly impudent when she chose; her aunt wondered if she had been impudent to Fordyce. She did not pursue the speculation, for, as she sailed through an open gate, she found herself in the same field with the tail end of the hunt and observed that some of the horses looked as though they had had enough. There must have been a sharp burst, she suspected, while she was struggling with Rocket near the sign-post. Evidently Fullarton and Cecilia were in front. She passed the stragglers, and saw Robert’s old black horse labouring heavily in a strip of plough on the near side of a stout thickset hedge which hid the hounds from her view. Rocket saw him too and began to pull like a fiend; her stall at Morphie was next to the one in which he invariably stood when his master rode there; that being frequently, she knew him as well as she did her regular stable companions. Lady Eliza let her go, rejoicing to have recovered the ground she had lost, and to be likely, after all her difficulties, to see the end of her morning’s sport. Fullarton was making for a thin place in the hedge, for his horse was getting tired and he was a heavy man; besides which, he knew that there was a deep drop on the other side. She resolved to take it at the same gap and began to hold Rocket hard, in order to give him time to get over before she was upon him.