ut found it again where the wood and the gravel pits met. How
the six who stayed in blistered their feet after that on the gritty high
road, till Cresswell hallooed them over the hedge, and showed them the
scent down the winding banks of the Babrook. And once again, how they
dived into the queer hamlet of Little Maddick, and saw the very loaf and
round of cheese off which the hares had snatched a hasty meal not five
minutes before. How Mansfield and Cresswell made a vow to taste neither
meat nor drink till they had run their quarry down; and how the ever-
diminishing pack sighted the hares just out of Maddick, going up the
Bengle Hill. Over Bengle Hill, down into the valley beyond, and up the
shoulder of Blackarch ridge, how they toiled and struggled, till once
more the sea burst on to their view, and the salt breezes put new life
into their panting frames. How along the ridge and down towards Grey
Harbour the leaders gained on the hares, hand-over-hand. And how, at
last, in that final burst along the hard, dry sand, the hares were
caught gloriously, half a mile from home, after one of the fastest runs
Templeton had ever recorded.

But my muse must curb her wings, and descend from poetry to prose, in
order to narrate the particular adventures of our three modest heroes.

For the first half-mile, be it said to their glory, they led the hunt.

Being convinced that their only hope was to get a good start, and shake
off the field from the very beginning, they dashed to the front on
Cresswell's cry of "Forward!" at the rate of ten miles an hour, and for
five minutes showed Templeton the way.

Then occurred one of those lamentable disasters which so often befall
youthful runners on the exhaustion of their first wind: Coote's shoe-
lace came undone! That was the sole reason for his pulling up. To say
that he was blown, or that the pace was hard on him was adding insult to
calamity; and doubtless the redness of his countenance as he knelt down
to make fast the truant lace was solely due to indignation at the
possibility of such a suggestion.

Dick and Heathcote, as they stood one on each side of him, really
thankful for the pause, professed to be highly impatient at the delay.

"Come on," said Dick, "here they all come."

"What a brutal time you take to do up that beastly lace!" cried Georgie,
"we might have been in the next field by this time."

"I think it will hold now," said Coote, rising slowly to his feet,