Yet to that very opening which had all but proved his destruction, he was now to owe his life. For Grey Fox, desperately anxious to reach him, forced his great head through the hole with the hope of seizing him, and got it so firmly wedged that some minutes elapsed before he succeeded in withdrawing it. By that time the hare was once more well on his way up the hill. He had passed over the brow before the foxes discovered the line of his retreat. But it was soon evident, from their half-hearted manner, that they were on the point of abandoning the pursuit, which they did a bow-shot beyond the lighted cottage. What a change had come over them! They hardly looked the same creatures as when, alive in every fibre, they had stood on the Beacon, the embodiment of eagerness and energy. Now their heads drooped, their brushes that had waved like feathers, dragged and seemed to weigh them down. They looked dispirited, as indeed they were, and humbled too: the grass-feeder had proved more than a match for both of them, though, as they had seen, he was hampered by large balls of snow that clung to his fur. They went back the way they had come, the vixen leading, Grey Fox hopping on three legs. Twice he stopped to scratch his aching jaws, and at the bend by the quarry he disappeared from view. The hunt was over, but even when satisfied of that the hare still held on. He was harassed now by a fresh fear, the fear of being tracked. This possessed him so strongly, that weary as he was, he wandered in and out the patches of scattered furze, confusing his trail so as to baffle any enemy who should try to trace him, and not until the long night was giving way to dawn did he settle in his form, which he sought in the old spot on the bank of the mill-pool. That day, whilst the Squire was abroad after woodcock, he came on the triple trail above the quarry, and recognising the track of the hare, was at once filled with desire to see the end of the story told on the snow. His excitement, as he stood on the lip of the quarry, looking at the shaft-like hole, astonished his henchman: the feeling he displayed when he discovered the track of the hare by the cottage door was altogether beyond the man’s comprehension. “Ah, that shows how sorely the poor thing was pressed. Had the door been open, she would have gone in and taken her chance.”