At every stride he expected to come on the end of the tragic chase, and kept looking ahead for the remains that would mark the last scene. All the greater, then, was his delight to find that the foxes had withdrawn from the chase, and greater too his determination to try and get a view of the animal whose survival in that vermin-haunted district seemed little short of miraculous. For three hours he followed the trail, pondering as he went over the animal’s hairbreadth escapes as his imagination called them up and, in his anxiety to come on the hare before dusk, almost losing his temper at the delays the creature’s ruses caused him. “Give it up, Squire,” said his man at last; “you’ll never come up with her, take and give it up.” “Not whilst there’s light to see by,” was the laconic reply. It was nearly four o’clock when they came to the mill-pool. Even then they searched and searched in vain, for as the hare had landed from his last spring the snow fell from the tuft and concealed him. “She’s here, I know she’s here,” said the Squire in despair. The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the hare bounded from his feet and crossed the pond. “Shoot, shoot,” shouted the man; “darn ’ee, shoot.” Instead of raising his gun, the Squire raised his hand and kept it at the salute till the creature passed from sight. It was his way of paying homage to an animal hero. ----- [4] Saffron is much used in Cornwall for colouring cakes. [5] A pennyworth of holly. [6] On Flora day, the 8th of May, dancing takes place in the streets of Helston. [7] It was formerly the custom to illuminate the church towers on Christmas Day. CHAPTER X THE FIENDS OF THE WILD Unrelenting as the frost seemed on Christmas Day, it yielded the next night but one to a warm westerly wind, the thaw setting in before dawn. When Andrew crossed to the bullock-house, water was dripping from the barn, by noon bush and boulder were beginning to show on the hill, at nightfall runnel and stream were chattering along their courses. The sound of running water cheered the birds at roost on branch and spray; it cheered the hare too, who kept snuffing the warm breeze that relaxed the icy fetters on the stream and melted the snow clogging his fur. Within forty-eight hours the balls of snow had completely disappeared, leaving him as light as a feather for his gallop over the moorland, where his path was marked by the spray which he spurned from the shallow pools. The splashes seemed to be caused by some ricochetting missile, so fleet were his movements: surely in all his life he never sped more swiftly than then.