Meanwhile I had been flattering myself that I was safe, and that once more I had escaped; but quickly I heard them coming back very quietly, as if intending again to hunt me. Previously to this I had found a rabbits’ burrow, into which I crept. I was luckily, as it happened, too much distressed and too heated to remain there, and left it, and went to the opposite side of the covert. At this time a cold storm of wind and rain came on, notwithstanding which an old hound or two got on my line of scent, and hunted it back the contrary way to that which I had gone, till they came to the rabbit burrow, where they stopped, and began baying and scratching with their feet at the entrance. There can be little doubt that hounds have a language well understood by each other, and I never can forget the noise made by the whole pack as they all immediately came to the spot; the men hallooed “Whoop! whoop! have at him, my lads”; and one was ordered to fetch a terrier, and tools for digging. During the time they were at this, I stole away from the covert in another direction, and so saved my life. It seems they soon found out that I had left the earth, tried the covert over again, and then went home, vowing my destruction another day. This was warning enough to prevent my remaining longer in or near this covert for the present. Venturing farther abroad, I returned to that in which I had been disturbed by the shooters, and there frequently picked up more wounded birds; I also found, in a field close by, part of a dead sheep, which a shepherd had left for his dog. Some of this I took away and buried. I was returning for another bit, when the rough dog, which had just arrived, suspecting that I had purloined his meat, flew at me the instant he saw me with such fury that he knocked me over and over again without getting hold of me. He then turned, and was in the act of securing me with his teeth, when I gripped one of his legs and bit it through; the pain which he suffered prevented him from more than mumbling me with his teeth; so I got off, and made the best of my way to the covert that evening. I felt next day that, bruised as I was, I could not have escaped for ten minutes from a pack of hounds had they found me; I therefore lost no time in reaching a main earth, into which I got before the earth-stopper had put to; but I had scarcely done so when he came at daylight, and to my great dismay stopped it up. I remained there all day and till late at night, and no one came to open it, and had I not contrived to scratch my way out, I know not how long I might have remained there, for I have reason to know that many of us are stopped up in rocky earths and drains for weeks, and starved to death, owing to the forgetfulness or sheer cruelty of the stoppers. I have heard such sad tales as—but just now it would interrupt my story to tell them.