yland road
he heard the cry of hounds approaching, and ere long a fox leaped the
wall into the road, and as quick as thought leaped the other wall out of
the road, and his swift bullet had not touched him. Some way behind came
an old hound and her three pups in full pursuit, hunting on their own
account, and disappeared again in the woods. Later in the afternoon, as
he was resting in the thick woods south of Walden, he heard the voice of
the hounds far over toward Fair Haven still pursuing the fox; and on
they came, their hounding cry which made all the woods ring sounding
nearer and nearer, now from Well Meadow, now from the Baker Farm. For a
long time he stood still and listened to their music, so sweet to a
hunter's ear, when suddenly the fox appeared, threading the solemn
aisles with an easy coursing pace, whose sound was concealed by a
sympathetic rustle of the leaves, swift and still, keeping the ground,
leaving his pursuers far behind; and, leaping upon a rock amid the
woods, he sat erect and listening, with his back to the hunter. For a
moment compassion restrained the latter's arm; but that was a
short-lived mood, and as quick as thought can follow thought his piece
was levelled, and _whang!_--the fox rolling over the rock lay dead on
the ground. The hunter still kept his place and listened to the hounds.
Still on they came, and now the near woods resounded through all their
aisles with their demoniac cry. At length the old hound burst into view
with muzzle to the ground, and snapping the air as if possessed, and ran
directly to the rock; but spying the dead fox she suddenly ceased her
hounding, as if struck dumb with amazement, and walked round and round
him in silence; and one by one her pups arrived, and, like their mother,
were sobered into silence by the mystery. Then the hunter came forward
and stood in their midst, and the mystery was solved. They waited in
silence while he skinned the fox, then followed the brush awhile, and at
length turned off into the woods again. That evening a Weston Squire
came to the Concord hunter's cottage to inquire for his hounds, and told
how for a week they had been hunting on their own account from Weston
woods. The Concord hunter told him what he knew and offered him the
skin; but the other declined it and departed. He did not find his hounds
that night, but the next day learned that they had crossed the river and
put up at a farm-house for the night, whence, having been we