e, Harry was
sitting very unconcernedly with his legs swinging in the ditch, rubbing
in the dock juice upon the stung places with all his might.

"Here he bes," said a voice, and the great brown face of one of the
carters peered over the hedge. "Art t'e hurt, Maester Harry?"

"No: not I," said Harry, getting up, "Jump over and catch that old
wretch. What made him run away with me?"

But the carter could not answer that question, so he tried to catch the
horse; but the first step was to get over the hedge, which he could not
manage so easily as the horse. He tried in two or three places, but it
was of no use, for the live fence was of the thorniest and thickest, so
he had to go round about a quarter of a mile to the gate, and then set
to to catch the truant. But this too was easier said than done, for the
horse found himself in very pleasant quarters, and refused to leave
them; there was the sweetest of pasture all round him in the shape of
juicy, milky, corn-ears; the long green stems would have made a pleasant
resting-place, and then there were the larks carolling above him, and
the white-throats and yellow-hammers twittering on all sides; while the
sun shone warmly enough to make work tedious and repose delightful; so
that altogether the horse did not feel disposed to return to his hard
bondage of drawing the hay waggon, so heavily laden that he had to put
out all his strength to draw it over the soil yielding surface of the
field; and he showed this as plainly as he could by refusing to "come
then." He wouldn't "come then" a bit, but turned his tail to all the
blandishments offered to his notice. It was of no use to pretend that
there was corn in your hand, for he would not believe it, and would not
even smell to see. The carter might run as fast as he liked, but this
did not answer, for it trampled the corn down, and besides, the horse
had four legs to the carter's two, and easily beat him at running, even
when he was dodged up into a corner of the field, for he dashed along in
the ditch and so escaped again into the centre.

"Whoa, then, whoa-oa-oa," said the carter, quite out of breath with his
efforts. But the horse wouldn't "whoa" any more than he would "come
then," but trotted off for a short distance, and then very coolly
commenced grazing upon the green corn-ears. At last the carter thought
of what he should have thought of at first, namely, leaving the gate
open, and trying to drive the horse thr