For a while we saw nothing, however, and so rode wide of the track, across the heather, until we found the woodland before us, and had to make our way back to the road, which passed through it.

But before we came in sight of the road, from almost under my feet, a hare bolted from a clump of long grass, and made for the coverts.

I cast off the hawk and shouted, but we were too near the underwood, and it seemed that the hare would win to cover in time to save herself.
Yet in a moment the hare was back again out of the cover, and running along its edge in the open as though she had met with somewhat that she feared even more than the winged terror which she had so nearly baffled.

And that was strange, for it is hard to get a hare to stir from her seat if there is a hawk overhead, so that sometimes men have even picked up the timid beast from her place.
"There is a fox in the underwood, and she has seen him," I cried, and then forgot all about the strangeness of the matter in watching the stoop of the ready hawk, who waited only for one more chance.
Not far did the hare win this time.

The hawk swooped and took her close to the edge of the wood, and I rode quickly to take the bird again and give her her share of the quarry.