‘Oh, . . . ho . . . ho,’ sounded at that moment in a prolonged call from one of the grooms. He was standing on a knoll in the stubble with his whip held up, and he called once more,‘O . . . ho . . . aho!’ (This call,, and the lifted whip, meant that he saw a hare squatting before him.)
‘Ah, he has started a hare, I fancy,’ said Ilagin carelessly. ‘Well, let us course it, count!’
‘Yes, we must . . . but what do you say, together?’answered Nikolay,, looking intently at Yerza and the uncle’s red Rugay, the two rivals.
igainst whom he had never before had a chance of putting his dogs. ‘What if they outdo my Milka from the first?’ he thought, riding by the uncle and Ilagin towards the hare.
‘Is it full-grown?’ asked Ilagin, going up to the groom who had started it, and looking about him with some excitement, as he whistled to his Yerza. . . . ‘And you, Mihail Nikanoritch?’ he said to the uncle.
The uncle rode on, looking sullen.
‘What’s the use of my competing with you? Why, your dogs—you have paid a village for each of them; they’re worth thousands. You try yours against each other, and I’ll look on!’
‘Rugay! Hey, hey,’ he shouted. ‘Rugayushka! ’ he added, involuntarily expressing his tenderness, and the hope he put in the red dog by this affectionate diminutive. Natasha saw and felt the emotion concealed by the two elderly men and by her brother, and was herself excited by it. The groom on the knoll was standing with his whip lifted; the gentlemen rode up to him at a walking pace; the pack were on the rim of the horizon, moving away from the hare; the rest of the hunting party too were riding away. Everything was done slowly and deliberately.
‘Which way is its head?’ asked Nikolay, after riding a hundred paces towards the groom. But before the groom had time to answer, the hare, who had been sniffing in the ground the frost coming next morning, leapt up from its squatting posture. The pack of hounds on leashes flew baying downhill after the hare; the harriers, who were not on leash, rushed from all sides towards the hounds or after the hare. The whippers-in, who had 'been moving so deliberately, galloped over the country getting the dogs together, with shouts of ‘stop!’ while the huntsmen directed their course with shouts of ‘o . . . o . . . ahoy!’ Nikolay, Natasha, and the uncle ind Ilagin, who had been hitherto so composed, flew ahead, reckless of low or where they went, seeing nothing but the dogs and the hare, arid afraid of nothing but losing sight for an instant of the course. The hare urned out to be a fleet and strong one. When he jumped up he did not it once race off, but cocked up his ears, listening to the shouts and tramp >f hoofs, that came from all sides at once. He took a dozen bounds not /ery swiftly, letting the dogs gain on him, but at last choosing his direc- ion, and grasping his danger, he put his ears back, and dashed off at ull speed. He had been crouching in the stubble, but the green field was n front of him, and there it was marshy ground. The two dogs of the room who had started him were the nearest and the first to be on the cent after him. But they had not got near him, when Ilagin’s black and an Yerza flew ahead of them, got within a yard, pounced on him with earful swiftness, aiming at the hare's tail, and rolled over, thinking she ad hold of him. The hare arched his back, and bounded off more nimbly 1 han ever. The broad-backed, black and tan Milka flew ahead of Yerza, nd began rapidly gaining on the hare.
‘Milashka! little mother!’ Nikolay shouted triumphantly. Milka ?emed on the point of pouncing on the hare, but she overtook him and ew beyond. The hare doubled back. Again the graceful Yerza dashed at
him, and kept dose to the hare’s tail, as though measuring the distance, so as not to miss getting hold of the hare, by the haunch this time.
‘Yerzinka, little sister!’ wailed Ilagin, in a voice unlike his own. Yerza did not heed his appeals. At the very moment when she seemed about to seize the hare, he doubled and darted away to the ditch between the stubble and the green field. Again Yerza and Milka, running side by side, like a pair of horses, flew after the hare; the hare was better off in the ditch, the dogs could not gain on him so quickly.
