Peter Mottin was an acting Sub-Lieutenant, but even acting
Sub-Lieutenants from Whale Island may hunt if they can get the
requisite day's leave and can muster the price of a hired mount. The
hounds poured out of Creech Wood, and Mottin glowed with intense
delight as his iron-mouthed horse took the rails in and out of the
lane and followed the pack up the seventy-acre pasture from whence the
holloa had come. It was late in a February afternoon, and most of the
dispirited field had gone home, so that there was no crowd--and a
February fox on a good scenting day is a customer worth waiting for.
Mottin sat back as a five-foot cut and laid hedge grew nearer, and
blessed the owner of his mount as the big black cleared the jump with
half a foot to spare. Two more big fences, cut as level as a rule, and
the field was down to six, with three Hunt servants. The fox was
making for Hyden Wood, and scent was getting better every minute. A
clattering canter through a farmyard, and Mottin followed the huntsman
over a ramshackle gate on to grass again. The huntsman capped the
tail-hounds on as he galloped, and Mottin realised that if they were
going to kill before dark they would have to drive their fox fast.
Riding to his right he saw Sangatte--a destroyer officer, whom he knew
only by name, but whom he envied for the fact that he seemed able to
hunt when he liked and could afford to keep his own horses. As they
neared a ragged bullfinch hedge at the top of a long slope, he saw
Sangatte put on speed and take it right in the middle, head down and
forearm across his eyes. Mottin eased his horse to give the huntsman
room at the gate in the left-hand corner. The pilot's horse rapped the
top bar slightly, and as Mottin settled himself for the leap, he saw
the gate begin to swing open away from him. There was no time to
change his mind--he decided he must jump big and trust to luck, but
the black horse failed him. The hireling knew enough to think for
himself, and seeing the gate begin to swing, decided that a shorter
stride would be safer. The disagreement resulted--as such differences
of opinion are liable to do--in a crash of breaking wood and a
whirling, stunning fall. Mottin rose shakily on one leg, feeling as if
the ankle of the other was being drilled with red-hot needles, and
swore at the black horse as it galloped with trailing bridle down the
long stubble field towards Soberton Down. He saw Sangatte look back
and then wrench his brown mare round to ride off the hireling as it
passed. He caught the dangling reins and swung both horses round, and
came hurrying and impatient back. As he arrived he checked the mare
and turned in his saddle to watch the receding pack.
"Come on," he said. "_Quick_--you'll catch 'em at Hyden." He turned
to look at Mottin by the gate-post, in irritation at feeling no snatch
at the black horse's rein. His face fell slightly. "Hullo--hurt?" he
said, and leapt from his mare.
"Go on. Don't wait. Go _on_," said Mottin. "I'll be all right. You get
on--it's only my ankle."
"Damn painful too, I expect. I'm not going on. They'll be at Butser
before I could catch them now, and I bet they whip off in the dark."
He threw the reins over the mare's head and left her standing. "Now,"
he said. "It's your left ankle; come here to the near side, and put
your left knee on my hands and jump for it."
Mottin complied, and to the accompaniment of a grunt and a
pain-expelled oath arrived back in the muddy saddle.
"I say, this is good of you--you know," he said; "but you've----"
"Cut it out--it won't be anything of a run, anyway," lied Sangatte
gloomily.
"Come along--it's only three miles to Droxford, but you'll have to
walk all the way, and we'd better get on."...