What a joy it is to them to stretch their limbs!  I forget the squalor of the kennel in watching their happy gambols.  I cannot drink more than one tumbler of brown brandy and water; but Dickon overlooks that weakness, feeling that I admire his greyhounds.  It is arranged that I am to see them work in the autumn.

The months pass, and in his trap with the famous trotter in the shafts we roll up the village street.  Apple-bloom and golden fruit too are gone, and the houses show more now among the bare trees; but as the rim of the ruddy November sun comes forth from the edge of a cloud there appears a buff tint everywhere in the background.  When elm and ash are bare the oaks retain their leaves, and these are illumined by the autumn beams.  Over-topped by tall elms and hidden by the orchards, the oaks were hardly seen in summer; now they are found to be numerous and give the prevailing hue to the place.

Dickon taps the dashboard as the mare at last tops the hill, and away she speeds along the level plateau for the Downs.  Two greyhounds are with us; two more have gone on under charge of a boy.  Skirting the hills a mile or two, we presently leave the road and drive over the turf:  there is no track, but Dickon knows his way.  The rendezvous is a small fir plantation, the young trees in which are but shoulder-high.  Below is a plain entirely surrounded by the hills, and partly green with root crops:  more than one flock of sheep is down there, and two teams ploughing the stubble.  Neither the ploughmen nor the shepherds take the least heed of us, except to watch for the sport.  The spare couple are fastened in the trap; the boy jumps up and takes the reins.  Dickon puts the slip on the couple that are to run first, and we begin to range.

Just at the foot of the hill the grass is tall and grey; there, too, are the dead dry stalks of many plants that cultivation has driven from the ploughed fields and that find a refuge at the edge.  A hare starts from the very verge and makes up the Downs.  Dickon slips the hounds, and a faint halloo comes from the shepherds and the ploughmen.  It is a beautiful sight to see the hounds bound over the sward; the sinewy back bends like a bow, but a bow that, instead of an arrow, shoots itself; the deep chests drink the air.  Is there any moment so joyful in life as the second when the chase begins?  As we gaze, before we even step forward, the hare is over the ridge and out of sight.  Then we race and tear up the slope; then the boy in the trap flaps the reins and away goes the mare out of sight too.

Dickon is long and rawboned, a powerful fellow, strong of limb, and twice my build; but he sips too often at the brown brandy, and after the first burst I can head him.  But he knows the hills and the route the hare will take, so that I have but to keep pace.  In five minutes as we cross a ridge we see the game again; the hare is circling back—­she passes under us not fifty yards away, as we stand panting on the hill.  The youngest hound gains, and runs right over her; she doubles, the older hound picks up the running.  By a furze-bush she doubles again; but the young one turns her—­the next moment she is in the jaws of the old dog.