orld of trees.

The hue and cry was taken up. Not one or two, but fifty had now seen
the quarry, and panted for the glory of the prize. And so, near the
very beginning of the day, the chase began.

The scent was found and lost and found again. The stag swam the river
twice, once at South Stoke, and once at Houghton Bridge, and the man
swam with it; and then, keeping over the fields they ran up Coombe and
went west and north, over Bignor Hill and Farm Hill, through the
Kennels and Tegleaze. They were sighted on Lamb Lea and lost in
Charlton. They were seen again on Heyshott and vanished in Herringdean
Copse. They crossed the last high-road in Sussex and ran over Linch
Down and Treyford nearly into Hampshire; and there the quarry turned
and tried to double home by Winden Wood and Cotworth Down. The marvel
was that the Rusty Knight was always with it, sometimes beside it,
often on its back; and even when he bestrode it, it flew over the green
hills like a white sail driven by a wind at sea, or a cloud flying the
skies. When it doubled it had shaken off the greater part of the hunt.
But through Wellhanger and over Levin some followed it still. In the
woods of Malecomb only the seven knights who most loved Maudlin
remained staunch; and they were spurred by hope, because when they now
sighted it it seemed as though the hart began to tire, and its rider
drooped. Their own steeds panted, and their dogs' tongues lolled; but
over the dells and rises, woods and fields, they still pressed on,
exulting that they of all the hunt remained to bring the weary gallant
thing to bay.

Once more they were in the home country, and the day was drawing to a
glorious close. In the great woods of Rewell the hart tried to confuse
the scent and conceal itself with its spent comrade, but it was too
late; for it too was nearly spent. Yet it plunged forward to the ridge
of Arundel with its high fret of trees like harp-strings, filled with
the music of the evening sky. And here again among the dipping valleys,
the quarry sought to shake off the pursuit; but as vainly as before. In
that exhausted close for hunters and hunted, the first had triumph to
spur the last of their strength, and the second despair to eke out
theirs. At Whiteways the hart struck down through a secret dip, into
the loveliest hidden valley of all the Downs; and descending after it
the knights saw suddenly before them a great curve of the steely river,
lying under the sunset lik