Not suspecting anything, the hare and the pack turned and ran back along the road they had traversed, yelping, shouting, hooting, blowing through their half-closed hands, leaping, some lads riding on the backs of others, one in a white female ragged gown running about and before the hare, flapping the arms and hooting like an owl. Would Taverner Langford come forth, worked to fury by the insult? Several were armed with sticks in the event of an affray with him and his men. Would he hide behind a hedge and fire at them out of his trumpet-mouthed blunderbuss that hung over the kitchen mantel-piece in Langford? If he did that, they had legs and could run beyond range. They did not know that he was away at Holsworthy. The road to that town lay over the back of Broadbury and passed not another house in the parish. The wild chase swept over the moor, past Wellon’s Cairn, past Langford, then turned and went back again. ’I’ll tell you what it be,’ said Piper, halting and confronting his pursuers. ’Larry Nanspian have thought better of it, and gone home. T’es his uncle, you know, we’m making same of, and p’raps he’s ’shamed to go on in it.’ ’He should have thought of that before,’ said one of the dogs. ’Us ain’t a going to have our hunt spoiled for the lack of a hunter.’ ’Why didn’t he say so in proper time?’ argued a second. ’Heigh! there’s his horse!’ shouted a third, and ran over the moor towards the piebald, which, having recovered from its alarm, was quietly browsing on the sweet, fine moor grass. ’Sure eneaf it be,’ said Piper; ’then Larry can’t be far off.’ Another shout. ’He’s been thrown. He is lying here by the roadside.’ Then there was a rush of the pack to the spot indicated, and in a moment the insensible lad was in the arms of Piper, surrounded by an eager throng. ’Get along, you fellows,’ shouted the hare. ’you’ll give him no breathing room.’ ’Ah! and where’ll he think himself, I wonder, when he opens his eyes and sees he is in the hands of one with black face and long ears, and tail and hairy body? I reckon he won’t suppose he’s in Abraham’s bosom.’ ’What’ll he take you for either, in your black faces?’ retorted Piper. ’Not angels of light, sure-ly.’ Then old Crout hobbled up. He had followed far in the rear, as best he could with his lame leg and stick. ’What be the matter, now?’ he asked. ’What, Larry Nanspian throwed? Some o’ you lads run for a gate. Us mun’ carry ’n home on that. There may be bones abroke, mussy knows.’ ’I reckon we can’t take ’n into Langford,’ suggested Sam Voaden. ’Likely, eh?’ sneered Piper. ’You Sam, get a gate for the lad. He must be carried home at once, and send for a doctor.’ He was obeyed; and in a few minutes a procession was formed, conveying Larry from the moor. ’He groaned as we lifted ’n,’ said Sam Voaden. ’So he’s got life in him yet.’ ’His hand ain’t cold, what I may call dead cold,’ said another.