he hounds, which never ceased
searching in all directions for the line of the Deer. At last after
much puzzling the hounds carried the scent to the water, and there
they were brought to their wits' end; but they tried up and up and up
with tireless diligence till they came to a place where a huge tuft of
grass jutted out high over the water from the bank, and there they
stopped.

"Oh, my lord, my lord," whispered the Blackcock, "you didn't never
brush the grass as you passed, surely?"

But while he spoke a hound reared up on his hind-legs and thrust his
nose into the grass tuft, and said, "Ough! he has passed here;" and
the Deer knew the voice as that of the black and tan hound that had
led the way to his hiding-place once before when he was a calf. Yet he
lay still, though trembling, while the hounds searched on closer and
closer to him, albeit with little to guide them, for the scent was
weak from the water that had run off his coat when he left the stream.
At last, one after another, they gave up trying, and only the black
and tan hound kept creeping on with his nose on the ground, till at
last he caught the wind of the Deer in his bed, and stood rigid and
stiff with ears erect and nostrils spread wide. Then the Blackcock
rose and flew away crying, "Fly, my lord, fly," and the Deer jumped up
and bounded off at the top of his speed.

He heard every hound yell with triumph behind him, but he summoned all
his courage, and set his face to go over the hill to the valley
whither the Wild-Duck had guided him two years before. And he gained
on the hounds, for he was fresh, whereas they had worked hard and
travelled far to hunt him to his bed. So he cantered on in strength
and confidence over bog and turf-pit till he gained the hilltop, and
on down the long slope which led to the valley, and through the
oak-coppice to the water. Then he jumped in and ran down, while the
merry brown stream danced round him and leaped over his heated
flanks, refreshing him and encouraging him till he felt that he could
run on for ever.

He followed it for full two miles and would have followed it still
further, when all of a sudden a great Fish like a huge bar of silver
came sculling up the stream to him and motioned him back.

"What is it, my Lord Salmon?" he asked.

"There are men on the bank not far below the bridge," answered the
Fish. "Turn back, for your life. Do you know of a good pool within
reach upward?"

"Not one," said the