REDPAD THE FOX 55 
Three miles further on the moor sloped down 
to the tilled lands again. Redpad was cantering 
along a bohireen l when he suddenly came full 
upon a countryman mending a wall. The man 
sprang up and shouted, and a big yellow sheep-dog 
darted from his heel. Redpad cleared the fence at 
a bound, and went away over a turnip-field with 
the collie not half a dozen yards behind. The field 
was a wide one, and although he succeeded in 
shaking off his pursuer on the other side, yet the 
sudden effort told upon him. His tongue was out, 
and now and then his gallop dropped into a hurrying 
trot. 
By now he was in fields which he knew well, 
and tried all the familiar hiding-places one after 
another. There is a ' shore ' by Kilmacabee and 
a badger set in Charlesfort Wood ; but the rain had 
filled the former with water, and the latter was 
blocked up. 
The early January evening began to close in 
when the home covert was still three miles away, 
but the scent lay stronger than ever on field and 
bog. Redpad was spattered with mud and his 
breath came in gasps, but he ran on gallantly over 
ploughed fields where the plover rose screaming at 
his approach, and over pastures where the sheep 
1 Narrow lane. 
