While the huntsman draws the hounds, or scans a patch of land in search of a scent, the aficionados in their cars listened for the hounds to speak. When they did, barking and yelping rose up from the landscape and the spectators answered with the sound of ignitions.
Hudson and two assistants known as whippers-in led the chase, keeping the dogs under control with a repertory of horn signals. For the next few hours, the blur of riders and animals looked like a Victorian painting, galloping and jumping whatever lies in their way. Anything to keep up with the hounds.
On the paths between the fields, it was a game of blind man's buff. Some spectators thought they had spotted the horses over the hills and sped off for a better view. But others, wearing countless shades of green, simply leaned on their cars, waiting, because they had seen enough of these to know that the horses were heading back.
Then there was Mrs. Mitchell. Armed with binoculars and wearing a bucket hat covered with antiban buttons — "Keep fighting, Keep hunting," read one — she knew the best vantage points.
Has she been following fox hunts for long? "Oh, rather," she said, drawing out every syllable, almost insulted by the question. "I'm 94 years old and I reckon I've been following these for 90 years."
By nightfall, the followers had peeled off and the huntsman and whippers-in decided to head back to the kennel.
Hudson has never questioned whether fox hunting and the 12-hour days were worth all the effort, but he suggested that it was not as satisfying as it once was.
"You get frustrated for the hounds," he said. "Their reward used to be the fox at the end of the hunt. Now they're not getting that. Yes, you can chuck them biscuits, but it's not the same as their reward; it's not what they're hunting."
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