hurriedly, for I wished to get far from my
prison before my escape was discovered. No one was there to see me;
the lie of the valley below gave me my direction, roughly, but closely
enough. After about an hour of steady, fairly good walking, I pulled up
by a little tiny brook for breakfast. I ate quickly, then hurried on,
for I dared not waste time. I turned out of the narrow cart-tracks into
what seemed to be a highroad.

I dipped down a hollow, past a pond where geese were feeding, then
turned to a stiff steep hill, which never seemed to end for miles. The
country grew lonelier at every step; there were no houses there; only
a few rabbits tamely playing in the outskirts of the coverts. A jay
screamed in the clump of trees at the hill-top; it seemed the proper
kind of voice for a waste like that. Still further on, I sat down to
rest at the brink of the great descent, which led, as I guessed, as I
could almost see, to the plain where Taunton lay, waiting for the Duke's
army to garrison her. There were thick woods to my right at this point,
making cover so dense that no hounds would have tried to break through
it, no matter how strong a scent might lead them. It was here, as I sat
for a few minutes to rest, that a strange thing happened.

I was sitting at the moment with my back to the wood, looking over
the desolate country towards a tiny cottage far off on the side of the
combe. A big dog-fox came out of the cover from behind me, so quietly
that I did not hear him. He trotted past me in the road; I do not think
that he saw me till he was just opposite. Then he stopped to examine me,
as though he had never seen such a thing before. He was puzzled by me,
but he soon decided that I was not worth bothering about, for he made
no stay. He padded slowly on towards Chard, evidently well-pleased with
himself. Suddenly he stopped dead, with one pad lifted, a living image
of alert tension. He was alarmed by something coming along the road by
which I had come. He turned his head slightly, as though to make sure
with his best ear. Then with a single beautiful lollopping bound he
was over the hedge to safety, going in that exquisite curving rhythm of
movement which the fox has above all English animals. For a second, I
wondered what it was that had startled him. Then, with a quickness of
wit which would have done credit to an older mind, I realized that there
was danger coming on the road towards me, danger of men or of dogs,
sinc