CHAPTER XIX 

 A HARE IN THE SNOW 



A peasant of 1537 Bitter winter A poor cottage The knight of the 

 shire Out into the snow The hare's trail The kill Sir Edmund 

 Wing The poacher's terror The tracker tracked The arrogance 

 of wealth A tragedy The midnight journey A ghastly burden 

 The oak and its secret. 



ON a bitter winter's morning of the year 1537, 

 Thomas Goodwin, peasant, rose from his pallet, 

 shifted the sheepskin coverlet more over his wife and 

 babe, and in the half-darkness began to array himself 

 for the field. That was no long matter, for the rustic 

 of that day slept just as the back-country Boer of South 

 Africa does at the present time mainly in his clothes. 

 Inside the cottage the air was nipping indeed. With- 

 out, the whole land lay lapped in snow and spell-bound 

 under one of the grimmest frosts of the century. 



Thomas awoke in no happy mood this dark January 

 morning. He was out of work and nearly starving ; 

 his wife lay abed with her first child, now but ten days 

 old. Do what he could, he knew not where to turn 

 for a day's wage, and food must be got somehow. A 

 pound or two of fat bacon still remained to them, and 

 less than a quarter of a sack of rough meal ; but for the 

 kindness of a good-hearted widow in the neighbouring 

 hamlet, who had hitherto sent his wife a trifle of milk 

 each day, the great, helpless giant knew that his wife 

 and child could scarce have won through the bad times 



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