The dawn was clear despite the grey sky, with only a belt of mist here and there on the lowland to interrupt his watch for the night-prowlers returning to their lair. The scanning of the moor was his constant practice, because of the haunting dread he had of being stumbled on by homing fox or fitchet; in fact, he never settled down with a feeling of real security until day had fully declared itself and driven all his persecutors to their retreats. Not a living thing showed at first; presently however his gaze was arrested by some animal that issued wraith-like from a patch of mist, and after crossing a wide strip of moor entered the croft bordering the “linhay” field. There he could see it as it threaded the stunted furze, though not plainly enough to make quite sure that it was a fox as he suspected. All doubt was removed when the creature, after being hidden by intervening bank and overgrown ditch, crossed the boundary wall and began stealing up the hill straight for the form. It was Grey Fox himself. It looked now as if the hare’s forebodings were at last to be verified, but it was not so, for the brute entered the clump of tall furze midway up the slope and remained there. The hare concluded that the fox had kennelled; he even judged him to be already asleep, so weary and exhausted did he look. But Grey Fox never thought of curling himself up; he was far too anxious for that; he was eagerly surveying the plain for sight of the enemy who had been pursuing him from farm to farm and moor to moor since midnight. He looked long without seeing aught, but he dared not compose himself to sleep. Instead he withdrew to the little grassy space behind the furze, where he kept walking up and down under the eyes of the hare, like a wild beast in a cage. “Strange behaviour this,” thought the hare. “There’s something very wrong with Grey Fox this morning. See how his flanks heave! what a mist his breath makes!” Presently the gaunt creature ceased pacing and lay down at full length, but after a few seconds he got up again and went back to the furze.