t
another wife, and as I have told you she was very self-willed.

So I lay still, thinking that those men and dogs would go away.

But what do you think Mahatma? Just as they were going the boy Tom
called out--

"I say, Dad, I think we might as well knock through the Round
Plantation. Giles tells me that the old speckle-backed buck lies up
here."

"Does he?" said Grampus. "Well, if so, that's the hare I want to
see, for I know he'd give us a good run. Here, Jerry" (Jerry was the
huntsman), "just put the hounds into that place."

So Jerry put the hounds in, making dreadful noises to encourage them,
and of course I came out, as I did not wish to share the fate of my
future wife.

"That's him!" screeched Tom. "Look at the grey marks on his back."

"Yes, that's he right enough," shouted the Red-faced Man. "Lay them on,
Jerry, lay them on; we're in for a rattling run now, I'll warrant."

So they were laid on and I went away as hard as my legs would carry me.
Very soon I found that I had left all those curly-tailed dogs a long way
behind.

"Ah!" I said to myself proudly, "these beasts are not greyhounds; they
are like Giles's retriever and the sheep dog. They'll never see me
again." So I looped along saving my breath and heading for a wood which
was quite five miles off that I had once visited from the Marsh on the
sea-shore where I lay sick, for I was sure they would never follow me
there.

You can imagine, then, Mahatma, how surprised I was when I drew near
that wood to hear a hideous noise of dogs all barking together behind
me, and on looking back, to see those spotted brutes, with their tongues
hanging out, coming along quite close to each other and not more than a
quarter of a mile away.

Moreover they were coming after me. I was sure of that, for the first of
them kept setting its nose to the ground just where I had run, and then
lifting up its head to bay. Yes, they were coming on my scent. They
could smell me as Giles's curly dog smells the wounded partridges. My
heart sank at the thought, but presently I remembered that the wood was
quite close, and that there I should certainly give them the slip.

So I went on quite cheerfully, not even running as fast as I could. But
fortune was against me, as everything has always been, for I never found
a friend. I ran along the side of a hedgerow which went quite up to
the wood, not knowing that at the end of it three men were engaged in
cutting down an oak tre