218 The Hunting Field With Horse and Hound 



stream twisting on its way to the Isis, to the left is the lane 

 with hedge-fences and each hedge flanked by a ditch. 



Those who fancy they know the game keep well up above 

 the pack, to the left along the lane, towards which the hare 

 is turning. Choosing this course, I had negotiated the 

 hedge into the lane and flung the last bit of mud from my 

 boots ; but in charging the hedge on the other side of the lane, 

 I found myself fast in the wire, which tore my coat and still 

 retains a patch of my knickers as a memento of the encounter. 

 Meanwhile the hare has crossed the lane into a ploughed field 

 and is making back in a wide circle towards the turnip patch. 

 Beagles and whippers-in were hard after and all coming my 

 way. At my sudden appearance in breaking loose from the 

 wire, the hare made a sharp turn, through the two hedge 

 fences enclosing the lane, and raced away towards the stream 

 below. Back I go through the lane hedges again. Puss sees 

 the error and makes another try for the turnip field and might 

 have succeeded had not the intervening hedge suddenly 

 bristled with belated beagles who had been checked by a bit 

 of wet ground. This was a facer, but Puss lost no time 

 in a council of war. Standing on my vantage ground I saw 

 him bound away down towards the stream. The water is cold, 

 swift and from bank to bank appears to be some twenty-five 

 feet in breadth. Surely the hare will not take to its icy cur- 

 rent. No, indeed, but he does a trick fully as courageous. 

 On he goes and in his splendid stride leaps the stream at a 

 bound, landing well over on the farther side. Well jumped, 

 my beauty! "Hold hard", cried some one, as a half dozen 

 "Freshers" break through the hedge with a rush. 



"Hold hard, here come the hounds." 



Sure enough, beagles, Master and whippers-in come to full 

 view, the beagles with noses to earth drive ahead with one strong 

 instinct speeding them on after the flying hare. The JNIaster 

 and whippers-in racing after, like myself, cast about for a 



