What were the experiences of the sub-terranean combatants none could tell; the flood burst from the lower end of the drain and ran down the field brown with mud and redolent of fox, and the pack, without a moment’s hesitation, pursued it hotly down the field till, amidst yells of laughter, it escaped from them into a boghole. After a brief interval, muffled hostilities recommenced in the drain; two spades and a pick appeared, as if by magic, and a shaft was sunk upon the squeaks.
“Give over the spades,” shouted Danny-O, as the roofing stones of “the gully” appeared, “the hands is the besht. Hurry now, before he’ll go north in it from ye!”
“Arrah, what north! he haven’t room to turn in it!”
“Dom yer sowl, he’d turn in a kayhole!”
“Go get a briar!” roared another voice, “he isn’t two foot from the hole! Twisht it in his hair now—twisht it, can’t ye, and dhraw him out!”
The principle was that adopted by dentists in extracting the nerve from a tooth, but the briar failed of its office. The spade and pick were again resorted to, and observations were taken by a small boy.
“The daag have him!”
“Is it by the tail?”
“No, but in a throttlesome way!”
“Come out now,” interposed Danny-O, “till I thry could I ketch a howlt of him.”