THE CHRONICLES OF CLOVIS by SAKI (H. H. MUNRO)

[obi/H.H.Munro/Chronicles.of.Clovis]
This text is in the Public Domain.

Text prepared in May 1993 by

  Anders Thulin
  ath@linkoping.trab.se

Esm
The Match-Maker
Tobermory
Mrs. Packletide's Tiger
The Stampeding of Lady Bastable
The Background
Hermann the Irascible
The Unrest-Cure
The Jesting of Arlington Stringham
Sredni Vashtar
Adrian
The Chaplet
The Quest
Wratislav
The Easter Egg
Filboid Studge
The Music on the Hill
The Story of St. Vespaluus
The Way to the Dairy
The Peace Offering
The Peace of Mowsle Barton
The Talking-out of Tarrington
The Hounds of fate
The Recessional
A Matter of Sentiment
The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope
``Ministers of Grace''
The Remoulding of Groby Lington

			  ESM

  ``All hunting stories are the same,'' said Clovis; ``just
as all Turf stories are the same, and all---''

  ``My hunting story isn't a bit like any you've ever
heard,'' said the Baroness.  ``It happened quite a while
ago, when I was about twenty-three.  I wasn't living apart
from my husband then; you see, neither of us could afford to
make the other a separate allowance.  In spite of everything
that proverbs may say, poverty keeps together more homes
than it breaks up.  But we always hunted with different
packs.  All this has nothing to do with the story.''

  ``We haven't arrived at the meet yet.  I suppose there was
a meet,'' said Clovis.

  ``Of course there was a meet,'' said the Baroness; ``all
the usual crowd were there, especially Constance Broddle.
Constance is one of those strapping florid girls that go so
well with autumn scenery or Christmas decorations in church.
`I feel a presentiment that something dreadful is going to
happen,' she said to me; `am I looking pale?'

  ``She was looking about as pale as a beetroot that has
suddenly heard bad news.

  `` `You're looking nicer than usual,' I said, `but that's
so easy for you.' Before she had got the right bearings of
this remark we had settled down to business; hounds had
found a fox lying out in some gorse-bushes.''

  ``I knew it,'' said Clovis; ``in every fox-hunting story
that I've ever heard there's been a fox and some
gorse-bushes.''

  ``Constance and I were well mounted,'' continued the
Baroness serenely, ``and we had no difficulty in keeping
ourselves in the first flight, though it was a fairly stiff
run.  Towards the finish, however, we must have held rather
too independent a line, for we lost the hounds, and found
ourselves plodding aimlessly along miles away from anywhere.
It was fairly exasperating, and my temper was beginning to
let itself go by inches, when on pushing our way through an
accommodating hedge we were gladdened by the sight of hounds
in full cry in a hollow just beneath us.

  `` `There they go,' cried Constance, and then added in a
gasp, 'In Heaven's name, what are they hunting?'

  ``It was certainly no mortal fox.  It stood more than
twice as high, had a short, ugly head, and an enormous thick
neck.

  `` `It's a hyna,' I cried; `it must have escaped from
Lord Pabham's Park.'

  ``At that moment the hunted beast turned and faced its
pursuers, and the hounds (there were only about six couple
of them) stood round in a half-circle and looked foolish.