Young Brooke
thinks so too, and says kindly, "You'll cross a lane after next field;
keep down it, and you'll hit the Dunchurch road below the Cock," and
then steams away for the run in, in which he's sure to be first, as
if he were just starting. They struggle on across the next field, the
"forwards" getting fainter and fainter, and then ceasing. The whole hunt
is out of ear-shot, and all hope of coming in is over.
"Hang it all!" broke out East, as soon as he had got wind enough,
pulling off his hat and mopping at his face, all spattered with dirt and
lined with sweat, from which went up a thick steam into the still, cold
air. "I told you how it would be. What a thick I was to come! Here we
are, dead beat, and yet I know we're close to the run in, if we knew the
country."
"Well," said Tom, mopping away, and gulping down his disappointment,
"it can't be helped. We did our best anyhow. Hadn't we better find this
lane, and go down it, as young Brooke told us?"
"I suppose so--nothing else for it," grunted East. "If ever I go out
last day again." Growl, growl, growl.
So they tried back slowly and sorrowfully, and found the lane, and went
limping down it, plashing in the cold puddly ruts, and beginning to feel
how the run had taken it out of them. The evening closed in fast, and
clouded over, dark, cold, and dreary.
"I say, it must be locking-up, I should think," remarked East, breaking
the silence--"it's so dark.
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