Also with them were I don’t know how many spotted dogs whose tails curled over their backs, not like greyhounds whose tails curl between their legs. Outside of the Plantation those dogs caught and ate my future wife, as I have said. It was her own fault, for I had warned her not to go there, but she was a very self-willed character. As it was she never even gave them a run, for they were all round her in a minute. Then they made a kind of cartwheel; their heads were in the centre of this cartwheel and their tails pointed out. In its exact middle was my future wife. When the wheel broke up there was nothing of her left except her scut, which lay upon the ground. I had seen so many of such things that I was not so much shocked as you might suppose. After all a fine hare like myself could always get another wife, and as I have told you she was very self-willed. So I lay still, thinking that those men and dogs would go away. But what do you think Mahatma? Just as they were going the boy Tom called out— “I say, Dad, I think we might as well knock through the Round Plantation. Giles tells me that the old speckle-backed buck lies up here.” “Does he?” said Grampus. “Well, if so, that’s the hare I want to see, for I know he’d give us a good run. Here, Jerry” (Jerry was the huntsman), “just put the hounds into that place.” So Jerry put the hounds in, making dreadful noises to encourage them, and of course I came out, as I did not wish to share the fate of my future wife. “That’s him!” screeched Tom. “Look at the grey marks on his back.” “Yes, that’s he right enough,” shouted the Red-faced Man. “Lay them on, Jerry, lay them on; we’re in for a rattling run now, I’ll warrant.” So they were laid on and I went away as hard as my legs would carry me. Very soon I found that I had left all those curly-tailed dogs a long way behind. “Ah!” I said to myself proudly, “these beasts are not greyhounds; they are like Giles’s retriever and the sheep dog. They’ll never see me again.” So I looped along saving my breath and heading for a wood which was quite five miles off that I had once visited from the Marsh on the sea-shore where I lay sick, for I was sure they would never follow me there. You can imagine, then, Mahatma, how surprised I was when I drew near that wood to hear a hideous noise of dogs all barking together behind me, and on looking back, to see those spotted brutes, with their tongues hanging out, coming along quite close to each other and not more than a quarter of a mile away. Moreover they were coming after me. I was sure of that, for the first of them kept setting its nose to the ground just where I had run, and then lifting up its head to bay. Yes, they were coming on my scent. They could smell me as Giles’s curly dog smells the wounded partridges. My heart sank at the thought, but presently I remembered that the wood was quite close, and that there I should certainly give them the slip.