A HARE IN THE SNOW 



nearly two furlongs, and then suddenly came upon 

 the traces he expected to find. The footprints told a 

 clear tale, and the knight's broad brow again knit 

 ominously. Here had a hare passed. There had the 

 man halted, gazed, and, taking up the tracks, pursued 

 his quarry. 



Now, whether for his deer, his many partridges and 

 rare pheasants, his hares, conies, or what not, no great 

 freeholder in Sussex looked more jealously after his 

 game, or was more tenacious of his sporting rights 

 than was Sir Edmund Wing. Ten or twelve years 

 before, in the fifteenth year of the reign of the present 

 King Henry, the knight had busied himself in the 

 passing of a statute in Parliament which provided for 

 just such an offence as he now saw delineated in the 

 snow before him. Thus ran the statute : '■''None shall 

 trace, destroy, or kill any Hare in the SnoWy in pain of 

 6s. Sd. for every such Offence : which pe^ialty assessed in 

 Sessions shall go to the King; hut in a Leet, to the Lord 

 thereof" 



With an exclamation of wrath and an angry thrust 

 of his staff into the snow, the knight now set himself 

 to follow the footprints of this man. Who was the 

 varlet that dared thus to break the law upon his land ? 

 He had with ruthless severity extirpated a nest of deer- 

 stealers who had once haunted his forests and raided 

 his parks. Was he to be bearded by lesser ruffians ? 

 Surely not ? He marched briskly through the snow, 

 and presently came upon the scene of the hare's death. 

 The quick eye of the sportsman saw readily the whole 

 tragedy in little. Stooping somewhat. Sir Edmund 

 deftly cleared away with his staff the snow which had 

 been carelessly kicked up by Thomas Goodwin to cover 

 up the traces of his capture. There, as he expected, 

 were the signs of death, a red, circular stain or two, 



179 



