Another brook stretches across our course, hurrying to join the greater stream along the banks of which we have so long been speeding; but this is a little one; there! we have cleared it cleverly. Now! now! the hounds are viewing him. Poor brute! his day is come. See how he twists and doubles, Ah! now they have him! No! that short turn has saved him, and he gains the fence--he will lie down there! No! he stretches gallantly across the next field--game to the last, poor devil! There! "Who-whoop! Dead! dead! who-whoop!" And in another instant Harry had snatched him from the hounds, and holding him aloft displayed him to the rest, as they came up along the road. "A pretty burst," he said to me, "a pretty burst, Frank, and a good kill; but they can't stand before the hounds, the foxes here, like our stout islanders; they are not forced to work so hard to gain their living. But now let us get homeward; I want my breakfast, I can tell you, and then a rattle at the quail. I mean to get full forty brace to-day, I promise you." "And we," said I, "have marked down fifteen brace already toward it; right in the line of our beat, Tom says." "That's right; well, let us go on." And in a short half hour we were all once again assembled about Tom's hospitable board, and making such a breakfast, on every sort of eatable that can be crowded on a breakfast table, as sportsmen only have a right to make; nor they, unless they have walked ten, or galloped half as many miles, before it. Before we had been in an hour, Harry once again roused us out. All had been, during our absence, fully prepared by the indefatigable Tim; who, as the day before, accoutered with spare shot and lots of provender, seemed to grudge us each morsel that we ate, so eager was he to see us take the field in season. Off we went then; but what boots it to repeat a thrice told tale; suffice it, that the dogs worked as well as dogs can work; that birds were plentiful, and lying good; that we fagged hard, and shot on the whole passably, so that by sunset we had exceeded Harry's forty brace by fifteen birds, and got beside nine couple and a half of woodcock; which we found, most unexpectedly, basking themselves in the open meadow, along the grassy banks of a small rill, without a bush or tree within five hundred yards of them. Evening had closed before we reached the well known tavern-stand, and the merry blaze of the fire, and many candles, showed us, while yet far distant, that due preparations were in course for our entertainment. "What have we here?" cried Harry, as we reached the door--"Race horses? Why, Tom, by heaven! we've got the Flying Dutchman here again; now for a night of it." And so in truth it was, a most wet, and most jovial one, seasoned with no small wit; but of that, more anon. DAY THE FOURTH