“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 and Ilagin, who had been hitherto so composed, flew ahead, reckless of how or where they went, seeing nothing but the dogs and the hare, and afraid of nothing but losing sight for an instant of the course. The hare turned out to be a fleet and strong one. When he jumped up he did not at once race off, but cocked up his ears, listening to the shouts and tramp of hoofs, that came from all sides at once. He took a dozen bounds not very swiftly, letting the dogs gain on him, but at last choosing his direction, and grasping his danger, he put his ears back, and dashed off at full speed. He had been crouching in the stubble, but the green field was in front of him, and there it was marshy ground. The two dogs of the groom who had started him were the nearest and the first to be on the scent after him. But they had not got near him, when Ilagin’s black and tan Yerza flew ahead of them, got within a yard, pounced on him with fearful swiftness, aiming at the hare’s tail, and rolled over, thinking she had hold of him. The hare arched his back, and bounded off more nimbly than ever. The broad-backed, black and tan Milka flew ahead of Yerza, and began rapidly gaining on the hare.
“Milashka！ little mother！” Nikolay shouted triumphantly. Milka seemed on the point of pouncing on the hare, but she overtook him and flew beyond. The hare doubled back. Again the graceful Yerza dashed at him, and kept close 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.
“Rugay！ Rugayushka！ Forward—quick march,” another voice shouted this time. And Rugay, the uncle’s red, broad-shouldered dog, stretching out and curving his back, caught up the two foremost dogs, pushed ahead of them, flung himself with complete self-abandonment right on the hare, turned him out of the ditch into the green field, flung himself still more viciously on him once more, sinking up to his knees in the swampy ground, and all that could be seen was the dog rolling over with the hare, covering his back with mud. The dogs formed a star-shaped figure round him. A moment later all the party pulled their horses up round the crowding dogs. The uncle alone dismounted in a rapture of delight, and cutting off the feet, shaking the hare for the blood to drip off, he looked about him, his eyes restless with excitement, and his hands and legs moving nervously. He went on talking, regardless of what or to whom he spoke. “That’s something like, quick march … there’s a dog for you … he outstripped them all … if they cost a thousand or they cost a rouble … forward, quick march, and no mistake！” he kept saying, panting and looking wrathfully about him, as though he were abusing some one, as though they had all been his enemies, had insulted him, and he had only now at last succeeded in paying them out. “So much for your thousand rouble dogs—forward, quick march！ Rugay, here’s the foot,” he said, dropping the dog the hare’s muddy foot, which he had just cut off; “you’ve deserved it—forward, quick march！”
“She wore herself out—ran it down three times all alone,” Nikolay was saying, listening to no one, and heedless whether he were heard or not.
“To be sure, cutting in sideways like that！” Ilagin’s groom was saying.
“Why, when it had been missed like that, and once down, any yard-dog could catch it of course,” said Ilagin, at the same moment, red and breathless from the gallop and the excitement. At the same time Natasha, without taking breath, gave vent to her delight and excitement in a shriek so shrill that it set every one’s ears tingling. In that shriek she expressed just what the others were expressing by talking all at once. And her shriek was so strange that she must have been ashamed of that wild scream, and the others must have been surprised at it at any other time. The uncle himself twisted up the hare, flung him neatly and smartly across his horse’s back, seeming to reproach them all by this gesture, and with an air of not caring to speak to any one, he mounted his bay and rode away. All but he, dispirited and disappointed, rode on, and it was some time before they could recover their previous affectation of indifference. For a long time after they stared at the red dog, Rugay, who with his round back spattered with mud, and clinking the rings of his leash, walked with the serene air of a conqueror behind the uncle’s horse.
“I’m like all the rest till it’s a question of coursing a hare; but then you had better look out！” was what Nikolay fancied the dog’s air expressed.
When the uncle rode up to Nikolay a good deal later, and addressed a remark to him, he felt flattered at the uncle’s deigning to speak to him after what had happened.
