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By this time the business of the meet was over, and mine host called me indoors, and half scoldingly reminded me that the breakfast ordered for seven a.m. remained untouched now, after eight o’clock. My little parlour, I found, had been invaded by a section of the shepherds, a few of whom joined in my meal. I had just got back to the front of the house, when the sound of a hunting horn floated along the stony breast of Red Screes. The stirring notes rose and fell and rose again, dying off at last in a confusion of sweet echoes. A pack of foxhounds is always an attraction at the Kirkstone Meet, and rarely does a good hunt fail them over the splintered seams and lofty slopes which extend for miles on either side. In a few minutes the pack arrived. There were no preliminaries; the huntsmen simply stated that the hounds would operate in a certain direction, and off they went, a knot of stalwart dalesmen in attendance. Up the great hill the quest gradually wound. Every now and again a hound gave tongue, but no scent worth following was discovered. I could see men and hounds scrambling and dodging among the rocks above the first range of cliffs. Suddenly there was a wild chorus; the tiny objects redoubled their speed of ascent. They stood out against the skyline, a number of slender points, then went out of sight. The huntsman’s pink coat had hardly disappeared over the rocky ridge ere another horn heralded the approach of the harriers. These last, with more leisure, cast off in a field just beside the inn, and, more fortunate than the others, had a scent almost at once. I watched them dash away, the hounds outdistancing their followers easily, till a fold of the fell hid them from view.

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