“Forward” again, before they are half through; the pace quickens into a sharp run, the tail hounds all straining to get up with the lucky leaders.
They are gallant hares, and the scent lies thick right across another meadow and into a ploughed field, where the pace begins to tell; then over a good hedge with a ditch on the other side, and down a large pasture studded with old thorns, which slopes down to the first brook. The brook is a small one, and the scent lies right ahead up the opposite slope, and as thick as ever. Many a youngster now begins to drag his legs heavily, and feel his heart beat like a hammer, and those farthest behind think that after all it isn’t worth while to keep it up.
Tom, East, and Tadpole had a good start, and are well along for such young hands. After rising the slope and crossing the next field, they find themselves up with the leading hounds, who have overrun the scent and are trying back. They have come a mile and a half in about eleven minutes, a pace which shows that it is the last day. Only about twenty-five of the original starters show here, the rest having already given in. The leaders are busy making casts into the fields on the left and right, and the others get their second winds.
Then comes the cry of “Forward” again from young Brooke, at the extreme left, and the pack settles down to work again, steadily and doggedly, the whole keeping pretty well together. The scent, though still good, is not so thick. There is no need of that, for in this part of the run every one knows the line which must be taken, and so there are no casts to be made, but good downright running and fencing to be done.
All who are now up mean coming in, and they come to the foot of Barby Hill without losing more than two or three more of the pack. This last straight two miles and a half is always a vantage-ground for the hounds, and the hares know it well. They are generally viewed on the side of Barby Hill, and all eyes are on the lookout for them to-day. But not a sign of them appears, so now will be the hard work for the hounds, and there is nothing for it but to cast about for the scent, for it is the hares’ turn, and they may baffle the pack dreadfully in the next two miles.
Ill fares it now with our youngsters that they follow young Brooke; for he takes the wide casts round to the left, conscious of his own powers, and loving the hard work. However, they struggle after him, sobbing and plunging along, Tom and East pretty close, and Tadpole some thirty yards behind.
Now comes a brook, with stiff clay banks, from which they can hardly drag their legs; and they hear faint cries for help from the wretched Tadpole, who has fairly stuck fast. But they have too little run left in themselves to pull up for their own brothers. Three fields more, and another check, and then “Forward” called away to the extreme right.
The two boys’ souls die within them. They can never do it. Young Brooke thinks so, too, and says kindly, “You’ll cross a lane after next field; keep down it, and you’ll hit the Dunchurch-road.” Then he steams away for the run in, in which he’s sure to be first, as if he were just starting. They struggle on across the next field, the “Forwards” getting fainter and fainter, and then ceasing. The whole hunt is out of ear-shot, and all hope of coming in is over.
“Hang it all!” broke out East, as soon as he had wind enough, pulling off his hat and mopping his face, all spattered with dirt and lined with sweat, from which went up a thick steam into the still, cold air. “I told you how it would be. What a thick I was to come! Here we are dead beat, and yet I know we’re close to the run in, if we knew the country.”
“Well,” said Tom, mopping away, and gulping down his disappointment, “it can’t be helped. We did our best, anyhow. Hadn’t we better find this lane, and go down it as young Brooke told us?”
“I suppose so – nothing else for it,” grunted East. “If ever I go out last day again,” growl – growl – growl.
So they turned back slowly and sorrowfully, and found the lane, and went limping down it, plashing in the cold, puddly ruts, and beginning to feel how the run had taken the heart out of them. The evening closed in fast, and clouded over, dark, cold, and dreary.
“I say, it must be locking-up, I should think,” remarked East, breaking the silence; “it’s so dark.”
“What if we’re late?” said Tom.
“No tea, and sent up to the Doctor,” answered East.
The thought didn’t add to their cheerfulness. Presently a faint halloo was heard from an adjoining field. They answered it and stopped, hoping for some competent rustic to guide them, when over a gate some twenty yards ahead crawled the wretched Tadpole, in a state of collapse. He had lost a shoe in the brook, and been groping after it up to his elbows in the stiff, wet clay, and a more miserable creature in the shape of a boy seldom has been seen.
The sight of him, notwithstanding, cheered them, for he was some degree more wretched than they. They also cheered him, as he was now no longer under the dread of passing his night alone in the fields. And so in better heart, the three plashed painfully down the never-ending lane. At last it widened, just as utter darkness set in, and they came out on to a turnpike road, and there paused, bewildered, for they had lost all bearings, and knew not whether to turn to the right or left.
Luckily for them they had not to decide, for lumbering along the road, with one lamp lighted, and two spavined horses in the shafts, came a heavy coach, which after a moment’s suspense they recognized as the Oxford coach, the redoubtable Pig and Whistle.
It lumbered slowly up, and the boys, mustering their last run, caught it as it passed, and began scrambling up behind, in which exploit East missed his footing and fell flat on his nose along the road. Then the others hailed the old scarecrow of a coachman, who pulled up and agreed to take them in for a shilling. So there they sat on the back seat, drubbing with their heels, and their teeth chattering with cold, and jogged into Rugby some forty minutes after locking-up. – Thomas Hughes.
AN ADJUDGED CASE
Between Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.
So the Tongue was the Lawyer and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill and a wig full of learning;
While Chief Baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.
“In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear,
And your lordship,” he said, “will undoubtedly find
That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear,
Which amounts to possession time out of mind.”
Then, holding the spectacles up to the court —
“Your lordship observes they are made with a straddle
As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short,
Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle.
“Again, would your lordship a moment suppose
(’Tis a case that has happened and may be again),
That the visage or countenance had not a Nose,
Pray who would or who could wear spectacles then?
“On the whole it appears, and my argument shows
With a reasoning the court will never condemn,
That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose,
And the Nose was as plainly intended for them.”
Then,
