me in turn the hunter. It is, as you say, a
dangerous game, but two can play at it, and each has an equal chance.
There is no loading of the dice, or throwing of fulhams. Now it was but
a few days back that, riding down the high-road, I perceived three jolly
farmers at full gallop across the fields with a leash of dogs yelping in
front of them, and all in pursuit of one little harmless bunny. It was
a bare and unpeopled countryside on the border of Exmoor, so I bethought
me that I could not employ my leisure better than by chasing the
chasers. Odd's wouns! it was a proper hunt. Away went my gentlemen,
whooping like madmen, with their coat skirts flapping in the breeze,
chivying on the dogs, and having a rare morning's sport. They never
marked the quiet horseman who rode behind them, and who without a
"yoick!" or "hark-a-way!" was relishing his chase with the loudest of
them. It needed but a posse of peace officers at my heels to make up a
brave string of us, catch-who-catch-can, like the game the lads play on
the village green.'

'And what came of it?' I asked, for our new acquaintance was laughing
silently to himself.

'Well, my three friends ran down their hare, and pulled out their
flasks, as men who had done a good stroke of work. They were still
hobnobbing and laughing over the slaughtered bunny, and one had
dismounted to cut off its ears as the prize of their chase, when I came
up at a hand-gallop. "Good-morrow, gentlemen," said I, "we have had rare
sport." They looked at me blankly enough, I promise you, and one of
them asked me what the devil I did there, and how I dared to join in a
private sport. "Nay, I was not chasing your hare, gentlemen," said I.
"What then, fellow?" asked one of them. "Why, marry, I was chasing you,"
I answered, "and a better run I have not had for years." With that I
lugged out my persuaders, and made the thing clear in a few words, and
I'll warrant you would have laughed could you have seen their faces as
they slowly dragged the fat leather purses from their fobs. Seventy-one
pounds was my prize that morning, which was better worth riding for than
a hare's ears.'

'Did they not raise the country on your track?' I asked.

'Nay! When Brown Alice is given her head she flies faster than the news.
Rumour spreads quick, but the good mare's stride is quicker still.'

'And here we are within our own outposts,' quoth Sir Gervas. 'Now, mine
honest friend--for honest you have been to us, what