After this nothing happened to me for a long while. Indeed I had the
best time of my life and grew very strong and big, yes, the strongest
and biggest hare of any that I ever saw, also the swiftest of foot.
Twice I was chased by dogs; once by Giles's black beast, Nigger, and
once by that of a shepherd. Finding that I could run right away from
them without exerting myself at all, I grew to despise dogs. Ah! little
did I know then that there are many different breeds of these animals.

One day in mid-winter, as the weather was very mild and open, I was
lying on the rough grass field that I have spoken of which borders a
flat stretch of moorland. On this moorland in summer grew tall ferns,
but now these had died and been broken down by the wind. Suddenly I woke
up from my sleep to see a number of men walking and riding towards me.

They were tenants and others who, although the real coursing season had
not yet begun in our neighbourhood, had been asked by Grampus to come
to try their greyhounds upon his land. Those of them who walked for the
most part held two long, lean dogs on a string, while one or two carried
dead hares. They were dreadful-looking hares that seemed to have been
bitten all over; at least their coats were wet and broken. I shivered at
the sight of them, feeling sure that I was going to be put to some new
kind of torture.

Besides the men on foot were those on horseback, among whom I recognised
the Red-faced Man and my enemy, the dreadful Tom. Most of the others
were people called farmers, who seemed very happy and excited and from
time to time drank something out of little bottles which they passed
to each other. Giles was not there. Now I know that this was because he
hated coursing, which killed down hares. Hares, he thought, out to be
shot, not coursed.