“Far more hunting with a hare nor a fox,” observed Mr. Rintoul, who always praised his department of the chase.
“Must have squatted,” observes old “Wotherspoon, taking a pinch of snuff, and placing his double gold eye-glasses on his nose to reconnoitre the scene.
“Lies very close, if she has,” rejoins Godfrey Faulder, flopping at a furze-bush as he spoke.
“Lost her, I fear,” ejaculated Mr. Trail, who meant to beg her for a christening dinner if they killed.
The fact is, puss having, as we said before, had a game at romps with her pursuers on a bad scenting day, when she regulated her speed by their pace, has been inconveniently pressed on the present occasion, and feeling her strength fail, has had recourse to some of the many arts for which hares are famous. After crossing the burnt ground she made for a greasy sheep-track, up which she ran some fifty yards, and then deliberately retracing her steps, threw herself with a mighty spring into a rushy furze patch at the bottom of the hill. She now lies heaving and panting, and watching the success of her stratagem from her ambush, with the terror-striking pack full before her.
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And now having accommodated Mr. Pringle with a second horse, perhaps the reader will allow us to take a fresh pen and finish the run in another Chapter.