160 WARWICK WOODLANDS. 



Harry should keep guard, wheeled back in utter silence, 

 and very slowly — for they were close to the spot wherein, 

 as they supposed, the object of their chase was laid up; 

 and as yet but two of his paths were guarded toward the 

 plain; Jem and his comrades having long since got with 

 the hounds into his rear, and waiting only for the rising 

 of the sun to lay them on, and push along the channel of 

 the brook. 



This would compel him to break covert, either directly 

 from the swamp, or by one of the dry gorges mentioned. 

 Now, therefore, was the crisis of the whole matter; for if 

 — before the other passes were made good — the stag should 

 take alarm, he might steal off without affording a chance 

 of a shot, and get into the mountains to the right, where 

 they might hunt him for a week in vain. 



No marble statue could stand more silently or still than 

 Harry and his favorite gray, who, with erected ears and 

 watchful eye, trembling a little with excitement, seemed 

 to know what he was about, and to enjoy it no less keenly 

 than his rider. Tom and the Commodore, quickening 

 their pace as they got out of ear-shot, retracted their steps 

 quite back to the turnpike road, along which Harry saw 

 them gallop furiously, in a few minutes, and turn up, half 

 a mile off, toward the further gulley — he saw no more, 

 however; though he felt certain that the Commodore was, 

 scarce ten minutes after he lost sight of them, standing 

 within twelve paces of him, at the further angle of the 

 swamp — Tom having warily determined that the two 

 single guns should take post together, while the two 

 doubles should be placed where the wild quarry could get 

 off encoutering but a single sportsman. 



It was a period of intense excitement before the sun 

 rose, though it was of short duration — but scarcely had his 

 first rays touched the open meadow, casting a huge gray 

 shadow from the rounded hill which covered half the 

 valley, while all the farther slope was laughing in broad 

 light, the mist wreaths curling up, thinner and thinner 

 every moment, from the broad streamlet in the bottom, 

 which here and there flashed out exultingly from its 

 wood-covered margins — scarcely had his first rays topped 

 the hill, before a distant shout came swelling on the air. 

 down the ravine, annoimcing Jem's approach. No hound 



