ether you run a little cunning or
not; so you should stick to those crafty hounds who keep edging away to
the right, and not follow a prodigal like young Brooke, whose legs are
twice as long as yours and of cast-iron, wholly indifferent to one or
two miles more or less. However, they struggle after him, sobbing and
plunging along, Tom and East pretty close, and Tadpole, whose big head
begins to pull him down, some thirty yards behind.

Now comes a brook, with stiff clay banks, from which they can hardly
drag their legs, and they hear faint cries for help from the wretched
Tadpole, who has fairly stuck fast. But they have too little run left
in themselves to pull up for their own brothers. Three fields more, and
another check, and then "Forward" called away to the extreme right.

The two boys' souls die within them; they can never do it. Young Brooke
thinks so too, and says kindly, "You'll cross a lane after next field;
keep down it, and you'll hit the Dunchurch road below the Cock," and
then steams away for the run in, in which he's sure to be first, as
if he were just starting. They struggle on across the next field, the
"forwards" getting fainter and fainter, and then ceasing. The whole hunt
is out of ear-shot, and all hope of coming in is over.

"Hang it all!" broke out East, as soon as he had got wind enough,
pulling off his hat and mopping at his face, all spattered with dirt and
lined with sweat, from which went up a thick steam into the still, cold
air. "I told you how it would be. What a thick I was to come! Here we
are, dead beat, and yet I know we're close to the run in, if we knew the
country."

"Well," said Tom, mopping away, and gulping down his disappointment,
"it can't be helped. We did our best anyhow. Hadn't we better find this
lane, and go down it, as young Brooke told us?"

"I suppose so--nothing else for it," grunted East. "If ever I go out
last day again." Growl, growl, growl.

So they tried back slowly and sorrowfully, and found the lane, and went
limping down it, plashing in the cold puddly ruts, and beginning to feel
how the run had taken it out of them. The evening closed in fast, and
clouded over, dark, cold, and dreary.

"I say, it must be locking-up, I should think," remarked East, breaking
the silence--"it's so dark."

"What if we're late?" said Tom.

"No tea, and sent up to the Doctor," answered East.

The thought didn't add to their cheerfulness. Presently a faint halloo
was he