Chances were against him; but what is chance? He had an exceedingly strong will of his own, and having had the worst of this matter so far, he was doubly resolved to go through with it. Without a second thought about his present guise or aspect, he ran back to the spot which he had left so unadvisedly. There he did what he ought to have done ten minutes or a quarter of an hour ago, he ran down the slope to the nest in the nook which had been occupied by Grace. Then he took to the track which she had taken; but she had been much too quick for him; she had even snatched up her letter, so that he was none the wiser. He came to a spot where the narrow and thickly woven trackway broke into two; and whether of the two to choose was more than a moment's doubt to him. Then he seemed to see some glint of footsteps, and sweep of soft sprays by a dress towards the right; and making a dash through a dark hole towards it, was straightway enveloped in a doubled rabbit-net, cast over his surviving hat. "Hold un tight, Jarge, now thou'st got un!" cried out somebody whom he could not see, "poachin' son of a gun, us'll poach un!" "Poaching--my good friends," cried Hardenow, trying to lift his arms and turn his head round, all vainly; "you can scarcely know the meaning of that word, or you never would think of applying it to me. Let me see you, that I may explain. I have been trespassing, I am afraid; but by the purest accident--allow me to turn round, and reason quietly; I have the greatest objection to violence; I never use, nor allow it to be used. If you are honest gamekeepers, exceeding your duty through earnest zeal, I would be the last to find fault with you; want of earnestness is the great fault of this age. But you must not allow yourselves to be misled by some little recent mischances to my clothes. Such things befall almost everybody exploring unknown places. You are pulling me! you are exceeding your duty! Is the bucolic mind so dense? Here I am at your mercy--just show yourselves. You may choke me if you like, but the result will be--oh!--that you will also be choked yourselves!" "A rare fine-plucked one as ever I see," said rabbiting George to Leviticus Cripps, when Hardenow lay between them, senseless from the pressure upon his throat; "ease him off a bit, my lad, he never done no harm to me. They long-coated parsons is good old women, and he be cut up into a young gal now. Lay hold on the poor devil, right end foremost, zoon as I have stopped uns praching. Did ever you see such a guy out of a barrow?" Heavy-witted Tickuss made no answer, but laid hold of the captive by his shoulders, so that himself might be still unseen, if consciousness should return too soon. Black George tucked the feet under his arm, after winding the tail of the net round the shanks, and expressing surprise at their slimness; and in no better way than this these two ignorant bumpkins swung the body of one of the leading spirits of the rising age to the hog-pound.