124 COURSING THE HARE 



run off four eights by two o'clock, no fewer than 

 seven of the original courses were run over again, 

 with a small sum depending on the issue each time. 



The next business w^as choosing a judge, and one 

 of our party generally filled the post, the farmers 

 preferring a ' stranger ' to one of themselves. We 

 began operations in the field adjoining the house, and, 

 as all the hares were walked up, it was a day of capital 

 exercise for everyone. Slipper and judge walked in 

 line with the crowd, and puss, unaccustomed to 

 being coursed, used to lie very close, and was as often 

 as not ' see ho'd ' by one of the beat. When slipped 

 at, these High Law hares used almost invariably to 

 make for the high ground ; almost as invariably 

 they chose the sheep paths to run on, and if they 

 happened to find one of these— firm enough to them, 

 but slippery to their pursuers — in the early part of a 

 course, they often got clear away without being 

 properly used. 



The crowd was always most enthusiastic, and 

 certainly forty or fifty men seemed to make quite 

 as much row as twenty times the number would do 

 at a public meeting. You see, this was their one 

 long-looked-forward-to coursing day of the year, and 

 as their lives were spent in a far away, thinly-popu- 

 lated, and lonely part of the country, they made the 



