Page:The Hare.djvu/62

40 miles the waves of the Solway beat on red sandstone cliffs, broken here and there by small bays, where the burns run down to the sea through little glens. One day I had left the others, and was standing among the seaweed-covered boulders of such a bay, when the sounds of a course reached me from a hillside a quarter of a mile or more away, and presently I saw the hare and greyhounds coming down to the shore; they ran close past where I was standing, and then, to my astonishment, the hare deliberately entered the water and swam out to sea. I could not persuade the greyhounds to follow, though one was so close that, if she had done so at once, she could have caught the hare without swimming, as the latter was out of her depth directly, and swam very slowly. The sun was shining very bright on the water, and it soon became very difficult to keep the hare in sight, as her head only showed now and then on the top of a wave, and about a hundred yards from the shore I saw her for the last time, though I stayed about the place a long time. This hare was perhaps hard pressed; still I could see no reason why she should not have run along the shore to the marsh dyke, which was close to, and where she would probably have made good her escape.'