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What was I to do! What was I to do! I saw a clump of furze to the left, a big clump and thick, and remembered that there was a hare’s run through it. I reached it just as Jill was on the top of me, and once more they lost sight of me for a while as they ran round the clump staring and jumping. When they saw me again on the further side I was thirty yards ahead of them and the wood was perhaps two hundred and fifty yards away. But now I could only run more slowly, for my heart seemed to be bursting, though luckily Jack and Jill were getting tired also. Still they soon came up, and now I must twist every few yards, or be caught in their jaws.

I can’t tell you what I felt, Mahatma, and until you have been hunted by greyhounds you will never know. It was horrible. Yet I managed to twist and jump so that always Jack and Jill just missed me. The farmers on the horses laughed to see my desperate leaps and wrenches.

But Tom did worse than laugh. Noting that I was getting quite near the wood, he rode between me and it, trying to turn me into the open, for he wished to see me killed.

“Don’t do that! It isn’t sportsmanlike,” shouted the Red-faced Man. “Give the poor beast a chance.”

I don’t know whether he obeyed or not, as just then I made my last double, and felt Jill’s teeth cut through the fur of my scut and heard them snap. I had dodged Jill, but Jack was right on to me and the wood still twenty yards away.

I could not twist any more, it was just which of us could get there first. I gathered all my remaining strength, for I was mad, mad with terror, and bounded forward.

After me came Jack, I felt his hot breath on my flank. I jumped the ditch, yes, I found power to jump that ditch where there was a rabbit run just by the trunk of a young oak. Jack jumped after me; we must both have been in the air at the same time. But I got through the rabbit run, whereas Jack hit his sharp nose against the trunk of the tree and broke his neck. Yes, he fell dead into the ditch.

I crawled on a few yards to a thick clump and squatted down, for I could not stir another inch. So it came about that I heard them all talking on the other side.

One of them said I was the finest hare he had ever coursed. Others, who had dragged Jack out of the ditch, lamented his death, especially the owner, who vowed that he was worth L50 and abused Tom. Tom, he said, had caused him to be killed–I don’t know how, but I suppose because he had ridden forward and tried to turn me. The Red-faced Man also scolded Tom. Then he added–

“Well, I am glad she got off, for she’ll give us a good run with the harriers one day. I shall always know that hare again by the white marks on its back; also it is the biggest I have seen for a long while. Come on, my friends, the dog is dead and there’s an end of it. At least we have had a good morning’s sport, so let’s go to the Hall and get some lunch.”

*****

The Hare paused for a little, then looked up at me in its comical fashion and asked–

“Did you ever course hares, Mahatma?”

“Not I, thank goodness,” I answered.

“Well, what do you think of coursing?”

“I would rather not say,” I replied.

“Then I will,” said the Hare, with conviction. “I think it horrible.”

“Yes, but, Hare, you do not remember the pleasure this sport gives to the men and the dogs; you look at it from an entirely selfish point of view.”