At this moment Tony's mind was much disturbed, and
he looked round more than once for Captain Glomax. Captain Glomax
had got into the brook, and had then ridden down to the high road
which ran here near to them and which, as he knew, ran within one
field of the gorse. He had lost his place and had got a ducking and
was a little out of humour with things in general. It had not been
his purpose to go to Impington on this day, and he was still, in
his mind, saying evil things of the U.R.U. respecting that poisoned
fox. Perhaps he was thinking, as itinerant masters often must
think, that it was very hard to have to bear so many unpleasant
things for a poor 2,000 pounds a year, and meditating, as he had
done for the last two seasons, a threat that unless the money were
increased, he wouldn't hunt the country more than three times a
week. As Tony got near to the gorse and also near to the road he
managed with infinite skill to get the hounds off the scent, and to
make a fictitious cast to the left as though he thought the fox had
traversed that way. Tony knew well enough that the fox was at that
moment in Littleton Gorse;--but he knew also that the gorse was
only six acres, that such a fox as he had before him wouldn't stay
there two minutes after the first hound was in it, and that
Dillsborough Wood, which to his imagination was full of poison,--
would then be only a mile and a half before him.
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