126 COURSING THE HARE 



coursed until darkness overtook us. It sometimes 

 happened, if the day was wild and stormy, that we 

 had not quite run through our stakes ; but more 

 often we finished with the supplementary matches I 

 have referred to above, and under any circumstances 

 there was plenty of sport. If the weather had been 

 frosty the hares had the best of it ; if it had been wet, 

 the dogs had less difficulty m accounting for their 

 game ; but kills were always few in proportion to the 

 number of courses decided,- and once I remember 

 that one solitary hare represented the whole bag. On 

 that occasion there was a Httle wet snow on the 

 ground, which was partially frozen underneath, and 

 puss skimmed over it quite at her ease, while the 

 greyhounds floundered and slipped about and were 

 altogether outpaced. 



As soon as the farmhouse was reached dry shoes 

 and socks were requisitioned, and then came the 

 dinner, sometimes held in the barn, sometimes in the 

 kitchen, according to our numbers, and presided over 

 by our neighbour the landlord, with the tenant of the 

 farm in the vice-chair. This dinner, on account of 

 our long drive home, was held at five o'clock, but it 

 was generally ten before we began the homeward 

 journey ; and meantime the dinner, and the songs and 

 speeches which followed, were in the highest degree 



