“It’s the turn of our house to find scent for Big-side Hare-and-hounds,” exclaimed Tadpole; “tear away, there’s no time to lose before calling-over.”

“I think it’s a great shame,” said another small boy, “to have such a hard run for the last day.”

“Which run is it?” said Tadpole.

“Oh, the Barby run, I hear,” answered the other; “nine miles at least, and hard ground; no chance of getting in at the finish, unless you’re a first-rate scud.”

“Well, I’m going to have a try,” said Tadpole; “it’s the last run of the half, and if a fellow gets in at the end, Big-side stands ale and bread and cheese and a bowl of punch; and the Cock’s such a famous place for ale.”

“I should like to try too,” said Tom.

“Well then, leave your waistcoat behind, and listen at the door, after calling-over, and you’ll hear where the meet is.”

After calling-over, sure enough, there were two boys at the door, calling out, “Big-side Hare-and-hounds meet at White Hall;” and Tom, having girded himself with leather strap, and left all superfluous clothing behind, set off for White Hall, an old gable-ended house some quarter of a mile from the town, with East, whom he had persuaded to join, notwithstanding his prophecy that they could never get in, as it was the hardest run of the year.

At the meet they found some forty or fifty boys, and Tom felt sure, from having seen many of them run at football, that he and East were more likely to get in than they.

After a few minutes’ waiting, two well-known runners, chosen for the hares, buckled on the four bags filled with scent, compared their watches with those of young Brooke and Thorne, and started off at a long, slinging trot across the fields in the direction of Barby.

Then the hounds clustered round Thorne, who explained shortly, “They’re to have six minutes’ law. We run into the Cock, and every one who comes in within a quarter of an hour of the hares ’ll be counted, if he has been round Barby church.” Then came a minute’s pause or so, and then the watches are pocketed, and the pack is led through the gateway into the field which the hares had first crossed. Here they break into a trot, scattering over the field to find the first traces of the scent which the hares throw out as they go along. The old hounds make straight for the likely points, and in a minute a cry of “forward” comes from one of them, and the whole pack quickening their pace make for the spot, while the boy who hit the scent first, and the two or three nearest to him, are over the first fence, and making play along the hedgerow in the long grass-field beyond. The rest of the pack rush at the gap already made, and scramble through, jostling one another. “Forward” again, before they are half through; the pace quickens into a sharp run, the tail hounds all straining to get up to 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 wattle with a ditch on the other side, and down a large pasture studded with old thorns, which slopes down to the first brook; the great Leicestershire sheep charge away across the field as the pack comes racing down the slope. The brook is a small one, and the scent lies right ahead up the opposite slope, and as thick as ever; not a turn or a check to favour the tail hounds, who strain on, now trailing in a long line, many a youngster beginning to drag his legs heavily, and feel his heart beat like a hammer, and the bad plucked ones thinking that after all it isn’t worth while to keep it up.

Tom, East, and the Tadpole had a good start, and are well up for such young hands, and after rising the slope and crossing the next field, find themselves up with the leading hounds, who have over-run 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. About twenty-five of the original starters only show here, the rest having