THE DREADED CRY 61 



by side on their hind legs, their eyes shining like 

 glow-worms. But the quarry was nowhere to 

 be seen, so presently mother and kittens leapt 

 to the ground and resumed the full cry, 

 which they kept up over the undulating field 

 beyond, round the edge of the swamp, and 

 below the pair of haggard thorns between which 

 the pack passed. 



Meanwhile the leveret, his task well done, was 

 on the point of leaving the downs. He was 

 perhaps a score yards from the gate when the 

 cry he had been so long expecting fell on his 

 ears and rendered him all but helpless. Some 

 hares would have lain down and awaited their 

 fate ; others would have squealed and hastened 

 it ; but the leveret's courage was high, and, stifling 

 the cry which sought for utterance, he battled 

 as best he could against the paralysing weakness 

 that assailed him, and dragged himself yard by 

 yard towards the gate. Suddenly the cry ceased : 

 the polecats had come on the maze, and in silence 

 devoted themselves to the business of unravelling 

 it. With the cessation of the blood-curdling 

 chorus the leveret's power gradually returned ; 

 he drew farther and farther away, seemingly all 

 uncertain as to his goal. At one moment he 

 headed for the form on the hedge ; at another 

 for the mound where he had sat once or twice 



