Again and again the hounds are slipped, now one couple, now the other:  we pant, and can scarcely speak with running, but the wild excitement of the hour and the sweet pure air of the Downs supply fresh strength.  The little lad brings the mare anywhere:  through the furze, among the flint-pits, jolting over the ruts, she rattles along with sure alacrity.  There are five hares in the sack under the straw when at last we get up and slowly drive down to the highway, reaching it some two miles from where we left it.  Dickon sends the dogs home by the boy on foot; we drive round and return to the village by a different route, entering it from the opposite direction.

The reason of these things is that Sarsen has no great landlord.  There are fifty small proprietors, and not a single resident magistrate.  Besides the small farmers, there are scores of cottage owners, every one of whom is perfectly independent.  Nobody cares for anybody.  It is a republic, without even the semblance of a Government.  It is liberty, equality, and swearing.  As it is just within the limit of a borough, almost all the cottagers have votes, and are not to be trifled with.  The proximity of horse-racing establishments adds to the general atmosphere of dissipation.  Betting, card-playing, ferret-breeding and dog-fancying, poaching and politics, are the occupations of the populace.  A little illicit badger-baiting is varied by a little vicar-baiting; the mass of the inhabitants are the reddest of Reds.  Que voulez-vous?

The edges of some large estates come up near, but the owners would hardly like to institute a persecution of these turbulent folk.  If they did, where would be their influence at the next election?  If a landlord makes himself unpopular, his own personal value depreciates.  He is a nonentity in the committee-room, and his help rather deprecated by the party than desired.  The Sarsen fellows are not such fools as to break pheasant preserves in the vale; as they are resident, that would not answer.  They keep outside the sanctum sanctorum of the pheasant coverts.  But with ferret, dog, and gun, and now and then a partridge net along the edge of the standing barley, they excel.  So, too, with the wire; and the broad open Downs are their happy hunting grounds, especially in misty weather.

This is the village of the apple-bloom, the loveliest spot imaginable.  After all, they are not such desperately bad fellows if you deduct their sins against the game laws.  They are a jovial lot, and free with their money; they stand by one another—­a great virtue in these cold-blooded days.  If one gets in trouble with the law the rest subscribe the fine.  They are full of knowledge of a certain sort, and you may learn anything, from the best way to hang a dog upwards.

When we reach the inn, and Dickon calls for the brown brandy, there in the bar sits a gamekeeper, whose rubicund countenance beams with good humour.  He is never called upon to pay his score.  Good fellow! in addition he is popular, and every one asks him to drink:  besides which, a tip for a race now and then makes this world wear a smiling aspect to him.