Ten o’clock, the hour fixed for the throw-off, came and went, and still Poachers’ Copse was not relieved of its busy intruders.  Many a gentleman foxhunter glanced at his hunting-watch as the minutes passed, many a burly farmer jerked his horse impatiently; while the grey-headed huntsman cracked his long whip amongst his canine favourites and promised them they should soon be on the scent.  The delay was caused by the non-arrival of the Master of the Hounds.

But now all eyes were directed to a certain quarter, and by the brightened looks and renewed stir, it might be thought that he was appearing.  A stranger, sitting his horse well and quietly at the edge of Poachers’ Copse, watched the newcomers as they came into view.  Foremost of them rode an elderly gentleman in scarlet, and by his side a young lady who might be a few years past twenty.

“Father and daughter, I’ll vow,” commented the stranger, noting that both had the same well-carved features, the same defiant, haughty expression, the same proud bearing.  “What a grandly-handsome girl!  And he, I suppose, is the man we are waiting for.  Is that the Master of the Hounds?” he asked aloud of the horseman next him, who chanced to be young Mr. Threpp.

“No, sir, that is Captain Monk,” was the answer.  “They are saying yonder that he has brought word the Master is taken ill and cannot hunt to-day”—­which proved to be correct.  The Master had been taken with giddiness when about to mount his horse.

The stranger rode up to Captain Monk; judging him to be regarded—­by the way he was welcomed and the respect paid him—­as the chief personage at the meet, representing in a manner the Master.  Lifting his hat, he begged grace for having, being a stranger, come out, uninvited, to join the field; adding that his name was Hamlyn and he was staying with Mr. Peveril at Peacock’s Range.

Captain Monk wheeled round at the address; his head had been turned away.  He saw a tall, dark man of about five-and-thirty years, so dark and sunburnt as to suggest ideas of his having recently come from a warmer climate.  His hair was black, his eyes were dark brown, his features and manner prepossessing, and he spoke as a man accustomed to good society.

Captain Monk, lifting his hat in return, met him with cordiality.  The field was open to all, he said, but any friend of Peveril’s would be doubly welcome.  Peveril himself was a muff, in so far as that he never hunted.

“Hearing there was to be a meet to-day, I could not resist the temptation of joining it; it is many years since I had the opportunity,” remarked the stranger.

There was not time for more, the hounds were throwing off.  Away dashed the Captain’s steed, away dashed the stranger’s, away dashed Miss Monk’s, the three keeping side by side.

Presently came a fence.  Captain Monk leaped it and galloped onwards after the other red-coats.  Miss Eliza Monk would have leaped it next, but her horse refused it; yet he was an old hunter and she a fearless rider.  The stranger was waiting to follow her.  A touch of the angry Monk temper assailed her and she forced her horse to the leap.  He had a temper also; he did not clear it, and horse and rider came down together.