NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



great hare had come lopping down the park, picking 

 its way delicately through the snowy covering, passing 

 beneath the stile, and moving out over the fields be- 

 yond. The man's hungry eyes were riveted upon 

 those delicate footprints. To him they meant so 

 much. If he could but secure that hare, his wife 

 would fare sumptuously upon the rich flesh and broth 

 for two days at least, even if he himself picked a bone 

 or two. 



Thomas looked round — not a figure showed any- 

 where upon the whole landscape. The keepers, he 

 well knew, were on the other side of the park, looking 

 to the feeding of the deer, which in this hard season 

 were being assisted with the comforts of hay and straw. 

 It was a risk ; but Thomas's mind was quickly made 

 up. The chances were much in his favour. The snow 

 would be falling again in an hour or two, and his foot- 

 prints and the hare's would be obliterated. This was 

 a sequestered corner of the park, seldom visited by the 

 knight or his servants. The man stepped out again, 

 crossed the stile, and with swift, stealthy footsteps fol- 

 lowed the tell-tale tracks that danced there in the snow 

 before him. He was, like most peasants of that period, 

 skilled in woodcraft, and had a pretty shrewd idea 

 whither the hare was making its way. The instinct of 

 the wild creature warned it of a heavy storm of snow 

 about to descend ; the wind was shrewdly piercing 

 across the open park, and the animal was now on its 

 way to some warmer and more cosy shelter. Steadily 

 the man pressed forward ; over two or three arable 

 fields, across a meadow of old pasture, and thence to 

 a wide fringe of gorse and bracken, which here, upon 

 the southern side, hemmed in the outskirts of a large 

 tract of woodland. 



The tale, told so plainly in the snow, came to an end 



176 



