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.