e sharp rebuke of the
whipper-in; Jollity, the keen-nosed puppy, was "rioting" on the cold
scent near the stream. Peering between the bushes, the fox could as yet
see nothing moving in the covert, but a few minutes afterwards his sharp
eye caught a glimpse of a hound leaping over the bank above the gorse,
followed by another, and another, and yet another, till the place seemed
alive with his foes.

Whither should he flee? The dingle was occupied; men and horses were
everywhere in the lane; and the hounds were closing in above the gorse.
The far side of the covert offered the only chance of escape, and
thither he must hie, else the hounds, now pouring down the slope, would
cut off his retreat. Quickly he threaded his way through the gorse, by
paths familiar only to himself and the rabbits, till he reached the
bank by the willows; but, even while he ran, the full chorus of the
hounds echoed from hillside to hillside, as, having "struck the line,"
they tore madly in pursuit. He reached the edge of the covert at a point
furthest from his foes--then, as he crossed the meadow, a single
red-coated horseman, standing sentinel far up the hillside, gave the
"view-halloo," and over the brow of the slope streamed the main body of
the Hunt.

It was at once evident to Reynard that by skirting the margin of the
covert he could not for the present escape, so he headed down-wind
towards the opposite hill, hoping to find refuge in a well-known "earth"
amid the thickets. To his surprise he found the entrance "stopped" with
clods and prickly branches of gorse, and had perforce to continue his
flight. Having well out-distanced his pursuers, he stayed to rest for a
while near the stream that trickled by the hedgerow; then, with the
horrid music of the hounds again in his ears, he turned, by a long
backward cast, in the direction of his home.

But he was wholly unable to shake off his pursuers. For four long hours
he was hustled from covert to covert, and hillside to hillside, finding
no respite, no mercy, no sanctuary. Breathless, mud-stained, footsore,
and sick with fright, his draggling "brush" and lolling tongue betraying
his distress, he sought at last the place he had long avoided, and,
entering the mouth of the den where the vixen and her cubs were hiding,
lay there, almost utterly exhausted. Some minutes elapsed, during which
no sound but that of his laboured breathing, and of the tiny sucklings
busy by the side of the dam, disturb