'There!' says the operator, in a tone of subdued triumph; 'she will not awake until the chalk line is rubbed out. Curious, is not it?'
But even as he speaks Dame Partlet, to give him the lie, has struggled to her legs, and lustily screeching, makes off with her longest stride and fluttered wings. Instantly the whole company gives chase. John Talbot, Mr. Harborough, Freddy Ducane, Margaret, Prue, even Chinese-footed Betty, two collies, and a terrier, who have been standing officiously round, all off in full cry at once. Across the garden-beds; through Jacob's best potatoes; over the sunk fence into the open park, helter-skelter they go—John leading, closely followed by Freddy and Mr. Harborough, while the three women tear madly behind.
John has got her! Not at all! She has slipped between his fingers, and he has measured his length on the grass! Then it is Freddy's turn, but she runs between his legs, and down goes he too. Certainly she is a gallant hen! John is up again, and now both he and Peggy make an unsuccessful lunge at her as she passes; and if it had not been for Mink, who adroitly pinned her by the wing—a feat for which he was afterwards much blamed, though they profited by his discourtesy—they would probably still have been tumbling over each other in pursuit of that speckled hen.
At the moment when Peggy and John had made their joint and futile grab at the object of their chase, her hand had come with some violence into contact with his wounded one. Instantly she is off her guard, and down from her stilts.
'Did I hurt your finger?' very anxiously.
'Are you quite sure?'
'Quite.'
'But I am afraid that I must have done.'
'I assure you no! How is the fox?'