Here and There 229 



as if afflicted by a species of madness, so that 

 nothing could divert them from the pursuit. Thus 

 they circle until they fall upon the recent trail of a 

 fox, for a wise hound will forsake everything else 

 for this. One day a man came to my hut from 

 Lexington to inquire after his hound that made a 

 large track, and had been for a week by himself. 

 But I fear that he was not the wiser for all I told 

 him, for every time I attempted to answer his 

 questions he interrupted me by asking, " What do 

 you do here ? " He had lost a dog, but found a 

 man. One old hunter who has a dry tongue, who 

 used to come to bathe in Walden once every year 

 when the water was warmest, and at such times 

 looked in upon me, told me that many years ago 

 he took his gun one afternoon and went out for a 

 cruise in Walden Wood ; and as he walked the 

 Wayland road he heard a cry of hounds approach- 

 ing, and ere long a fox leaped the wall into the 

 road, and as quick as thought leaped the other wall 

 out of the road, and his swift bullet had not touched 

 him. Some way behind came an old hound and 

 her three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own 

 account, and disappeared again in the woods. Late 

 in the afternoon, as he was resting in the thick 

 woods south of Walden, he heard the voice of the 

 hounds far over toward Fair-Haven still pursuing 

 the fox ; and on they came, their hounding cry, 

 which made all the woods ring, sounding nearer 

 and nearer, now from Well-Meadow, now from 

 the Baker Farm. For a long time he stood still 

 and listened to their music, so sweet to a hunter's 

 ear, when suddenly the fox appeared, threading the 

 solemn aisles with an easy coursing pace, whose 

 sound was concealed by a sympathetic rustle of the 

 leaves, swift and still, keeping the ground, leaving 



