His suspense was short, for soon to his horror a fox-like snout and long red tongue showed beneath the lowest bar. The next instant the lissom beast forced her way beneath it to the field. She at once picked up the line and followed it to the far corner near the old seat where the hare had leapt on the wall and walked along the rude coping-stones before leaping back and squatting near the medlar. Carefully and not without difficulty the lurcher followed the scent to the last of the stones, naturally thought that the hare had gone on, and dropped to the oat stubble, but finding no trace of scent, recognised her mistake. Then back she leapt to the wall, with wondrous ease considering its height; and though she could hardly keep her feet for the gale, she stood there all excitement, scrutinising the ploughed ground with eager eyes. She searched every furrow without descrying the hare; the leaves that whirled about him baffled her. Though she failed to find him, she was so convinced he was there that she sprang to the ground and began questing, beginning at the lower end and casting to and fro across the wind in the most leisurely fashion, as if she knew there was no occasion for hurry. She had drawn about a third of the field when the hare, seeing discovery was certain, slipped from his hiding-place and, crouching very low, stole towards the wall. He hoped to get away unobserved, but his hope was vain. Just as he reached the ditch the lurcher espied him, and with a single whine started in pursuit. Her pace down the stubble was tremendous; she was not more than ten yards behind the hare at the badgers’ sett in the hollow below. But on the opposing rise she lost ground. By the time she came to the big pasture where she had picked up the line at dawn, the quarry was out of sight. She was again running by scent. Though the hare had won and maintained a lead of nearly a furlong, he was beginning to feel the strain of the chase, and anxiously consulted with himself about his safety. Two voices made themselves heard: the homing instinct kept urging him to return to the hills; the voice of self-preservation with even greater insistence whispered, “Seek the moor, there alone safety lies”; so towards Hal Kimbra moor he held on and on, till at last, from a bit of rising ground, he saw the bleak waste stretching away before him. The fear of being sighted and coursed on the level surface made him shrink from crossing it: his indecision, however, was only momentary; on looking back and seeing no sign of his enemy, he determined to commit himself, though not before foiling his trail.