Billy went to the far side of the road and turned to face the wall. Simultaneously he kicked with his heels and gave his horse a slap. With a scrambling of feet on gravel that sent sparks flying, it accelerated and bounded over the wall and down into the field.

Glenn turned to Liam. "Not much room to get going there," he said.

"There was enough. Any good hunter should be able to jump three six from a standstill," he replied.

The hunt trotted further on up the road for half a mile, until they came to an old wooden gate, where the huntsman pulled up.

"Get in there, boys," encouraged Brady as he walked his horse along the side of the wood. "This is normally a good covert, Glenn. If we’re lucky he’ll go out the far side and we’ll have a good run across some nice grassland," said Liam. They came to a stone wall and Brady jumped over it and was shortly followed by the master.

Liam turned to Glenn. "I’ll give you a lead, she might be a little reluctant, so give her a good slap and let her know you mean business," he said as he rode at the wall and flew over. The mare put her ears back and Glenn felt her ready to refuse. He gave her a poke with the spurs and good thump with his hunt whip behind the saddle. Reluctantly she jumped, but instead of standing back and following a nice parabola through the air, she got in close then went straight up and down like a pogo stick. As they landed, Glenn was thrown forward onto the hard pommel of the saddle. He let out a gasp as a sharp pain shot up from his crotch. He bent foreword and grimaced, waiting for the pain to subside.

"Crushed nuts?" asked Liam, with the trace of a smile.

Glenn nodded as he tried to compose himself. "I tell you one thing, she’s going to have to improve a lot, in a hurry, if we hope to win our bet." He gasped.

"You’ve got to have faith lad, we have all day," said Liam.

"That’s alright for you to say. They’re my balls not yours."

Ahead of them the huntsman trotted at another wall and jumped over it with the other riders followed behind. Glenn and Liam were further back and they cantered into it. Glenn, feeling the mare’s reluctance, gave her another slap and kick. Once more she got in too close and gave him a short, sharp jump, but it was an improvement as she extended a fraction more than on the previous one.

They waited outside the covert for nearly an hour but no fox came. The temperature dropped and the cold wind whistled through the blackthorn hedges and rattled the ivy on the trees. Overhead, in the grey sky, rooks let out raucous cries and blew past, like ragged leaves in the wind. Horses fidgeted, and turned their tails to the gale. Drinking flasks appeared and were passed around. Clouds of smoke rose and then were whipped away from hunched-over smokers.

Eventually Brady decided there was no fox at home and it was fruitless to carry on drawing. He blew on his horn and the disinterested hounds quickly gathered around him. He counted them and, satisfied he had them all, he trotted out of the field and down the road.

"Where we going?" asked Glenn as they followed the huntsman.

"There’s another covert a couple of miles down the road," said Paddy next to him as he pointed towards another wood in the distance.

Half a mile later they turned a bend and there in the middle of the road ahead of them, was a tinker on a small cart with a tired looking donkey in the shafts. The donkey, seeing all the horses, suddenly perked up. He lifted his nose and looked out from his leather blinkers like some old shortsighted professor. The hunt slowed and then parted as the horses viewed the apparition. They snorted and jigged sideways, suspicious of the donkey who obviously only wanted to be friendly. As he passed through them he suddenly let out a deafening, cacophonous hee-haw. In an instant the orderly hunt was a shambles as the unsettled horses all spooked, and took off at a mad gallop down the road.