“But I can run, you know,” responded Van Rheyn.
“Yes. But can you keep the pace up?”
“Why not?”
“We may be out for three or four hours, pelting like mad all the time.”
“I feel no fear of keeping up,” said Van Rheyn. “I will go.”
“All right.”
It was on a Saturday afternoon; and we were turning out for hare and hounds. The quarter was hard upon its close, for September was passing. Van Rheyn had never seen hare and hounds: it had been let alone during the hotter weather: and it was Tod who now warned him that he might not be able to keep up the running. It requires fleet legs and easy breath, as every one knows; and Van Rheyn had never much exercised either.
“What is just the game?” he asked in his quaintly-turned phrase. And I answered him—for Tod had gone away.
“You see those strips of paper that they have torn out of old copybooks, and are twisting? That is for the scent. The hare fills his pockets with it, and drops a piece of it every now and then as he runs. We, the hounds, follow his course by means of the scent, and catch him if we can.”
“And then?” questioned Van Rheyn.