dogs and the people galloping upon horses and in front were the three
men. What was I to do? Now I had stopped exactly in a gateway, for a
lane ran alongside the wood. After a moment's pause I bolted through the
gateway, thinking that I would get into the wood beyond. But one of the
men, who of course wanted to see me killed, was too quick for me and
there headed me again.

Then I lost my senses. Instead of running on past him and leaping into
the wood, I swung right round and rushed back, still clinging to the
hedgerow. Indeed as I went down one side of it the hounds and the
hunters came up on the other, so that there were only a few sticks
between us, though fortunately the wind was blowing from them to me.
Fearing lest they should see me I jumped into the ditch and ran for
quite two hundred yards through the mud and water that was gathered
there. Then I had to come out of it again as it ended but here was a
fall in the ground, so still I was not seen.

Meanwhile the hunt had reached the three men and I heard them all
talking together. The end of it was that the men explained which way I
had gone, and once more the hounds were laid on to me. In a minute they
got to where I had entered the ditch, and there grew confused because my
footmarks did not smell in the water. For quite a long time they looked
about till at length, taking a wide cast, the hounds found my smell
again at the end of the ditch.

During this check I was making the best of my way back towards my own
home; indeed had it not been for it I should have been caught and torn
to pieces much sooner than I was. Thus it happened that I had covered
quite three miles before once more I heard those hounds baying behind
me. This was just as I got on to the moorland, at that edge of it which