"the meeey haeeiees." 43 



were reached and the pack thrown into a turnip 

 field. 



Hares seemed the reverse of plentiful; plongli, 

 stubble, turnips, and fallow were tried in vain ; 

 but Cobb was happy. 



*' Splendid sport, isn't it ? Magnificent day 

 we're having, aren't we ? T knew what hounds 

 they were, and I wasn't wrong, though I've 

 never been out with them — not with this lot — 

 before," Cobb rode about saying to people when 

 they had been oat some two hours without a 

 sign of a hare. He was enjoying himself 

 thoroughly, and regarded the mere absence of 

 anything to hunt as an unimportant detail not 

 worthy of mention ; and on second thoughts 

 where hares are concerned I am after all not so 

 sure that Cobb was wrong. 



At length we have approached Barnley Mead, 

 and Farmer Eingwood knows that there's a hare 

 somewhere about his bit of furze some half-mile 

 off; so for that we make, over there beyond that 

 line of hurdles. And the hurdles are not generally 

 popular. Young men who at breakfast time were 

 shrugging their shoulders and declaring that 

 harriers were so dreadfully slow that there was no 

 fun, that it was not hunting, and that they had 

 only shown up to " give old Cobb a turn, because 

 he wasn't half a bad fellow," waited one after 



