But come! come! let's be bustling; the
sun's going to get up already. You'll leave your horses here, I suppose,
gentlemen, and get to the old stands. Tom Draw, put Mr. Forester at my
old post down by the big pin-oak at the creek side; and you stand there,
Frank, still as a church-mouse. It's ten to one, if some of those
fellows don't shoot him first, that he'll break covert close by you, and
run the meadows for a mile or two, up to the turnpike road, and over it
to Rocky hill--that black knob yonder, covered with pine and hemlock.
There are some queer snake fences in the flat, and a big brook or two,
but Peacock has been over every inch of it before, and you may trust in
him implicitly. Good bye! I'm going up the road with Jem to drive it
from the upper end."
And off he went at a merry trot, with the hounds gamboling about his
stirrups, and Jem Lyn running at his best pace to keep up with him. In a
few minutes they were lost behind a swell of woodland, round which the
road wheeled suddenly. At the same moment Tom and his companions
reappeared from the stables where they had been securing their
four-footed friends; and, after a few seconds, spent in running ramrods
down the barrels to see that all was right, inspecting primings, knapping
flints, or putting on fresh copper caps, it was announced that all was
ready; and passing through the farm-yard, we entered, through a set of
bars, a broad bright buckwheat stubble.
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