I now returned to my buttress of bushes and waited.
The rabbits did not bolt my side again for a while.

Every now and then I saw, or heard, Orion or Little John leap into their ditch, and well knew what it meant before the dead rabbit was cast out to fall with a helpless thud upon the sward.
Once I saw a rabbit's head at the mouth of a hole, and momentarily expected him to dart forth driven by the same panic fear.

But either the ferret passed, or there was another side-tunnel--the rabbit went back.
Some few minutes afterwards Little John exclaimed: 'Look out, you; ferret's out!' One of the ferrets had come out of a hole and was aimlessly--as it appeared--roaming along the bank.
As he came nearest my side, I got quietly into the ditch and seized him, and put him into a hole.

To my surprise he refused to go in--I pushed him: he returned and continued to try to come out till I gave him a sharp fillip with the finger, when he shook the dust and particles of dry earth from his fur with a shiver, as if in protest, and slowly disappeared inside the hole.
As I was creeping out of the deep ditch on hands and knees, I heard Orion call angrily to the spaniel to come to heel.

Hitherto the spaniel had sat on his haunches behind Orion fairly quiet and still, though not without an occasional restless movement.