THE MEET AND THE FIRST BURST.

At the meet they found some forty or fifty boys, and Tom felt sure,
from having seen many of them run at foot-ball, that he and East were
more likely to get in than they.

After a few minutes' waiting, two well-known runners, chosen for the
hares, buckled on the four bags filled with scent, compared their
watches with those of young Brooke and Thorne, and started off at a
long, slinging trot across the fields in the direction of Barby.

Then the hounds clustered round Thorne, who explained shortly,
"They're to have six minutes' law.[14] We run to the Cock,[15] and
every one who comes in within a quarter of an hour of the hares'll be
counted, if he has been round Barby Church." Then came a minute's
pause or so, and then the watches are pocketed, and the pack is led
through the gate-way into the field which the hares had first crossed.
Here they break into a trot, scattering over the field to find the
first traces of the scent which the hares throw out as they go along.
The old hounds make straight for the likely points, and in a minute a
cry of "Forward" comes from one of them, and the whole pack quickening
their pace make for the spot, while the boy who hit the scent first,
and the two or three nearest to him, are over the first fence, and
making play along the hedge-row in the long grass-field beyond. 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 plowed field, where
the pace begins to tell; then over a good wattle[16] 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[17]
sheep charge away across the field as the pack comes racing down the
slope. The brook is a small one, and the scent lies right ahead up the
opposite slope, and as thick as ever; not a turn or a check to favor
the tail hounds, who strain on, now trailing in a long line, many a
youngster beginning to drag his legs heavily, and feel his heart beat
like a hammer, and the bad plucked ones thinking that after all it
isn't worth while to keep it up.

[14] #Six minutes' law#: six minutes' start.

[15] #The Cock#: a noted inn.

[16] #Wattl