Page:The Hare.djvu/143

Rh the field, began to quarter the ground like a pointer, and at length he trotted back to us.

We (a not very sympathetic gamekeeper and myself) were quite at a loss to understand the proceedings, but we reflected that the twelve hours of howling in a strange kennel had probably demoralised him, and we decided not to try him again until he had become settled in his new quarters. At the end of a week or so we put him in the slips with a sapling barely a year old, and when the slip was made away shot the sapling with a tremendous lead, while the brindle ambled on for a while, and then began once more to quarter the ground.

I was now very angry, and went in hot haste to Old Jack, who was still confined to his room. The old boy did not seem surprised to see me, and listened to my tale with a merry twinkle in his eye. At last he spoke. 'You must not be hard on me, Master Charles. I wanted the money badly, and I thought you would know that I only used Spider for driving the fields at night. Thinks I to myself, what does Master Charles want with the brindled dog? Surely he must be going to drive the hares into a gate net. Well, he'll soon find out what dog's been used for, and then he'll come back to me.'

And now I may as well describe one of the farmers'