“
Coming along the road towards me on his way to the covert, his head high, his body smeared all breast-deep in clay that stained the lower half of him copper ochre, came a fox hound, a pale hound. He was alone which was wrong. But being alone made him the type of all hounds that ever existed.
He was running as if he'd been running all day, and he was running as if he would never stop, tongue out and eyes fixed. He was running to be with the rest of the hounds and the sound was drawing him along the rainy roads as if he were underwater and swimming up to the light to breathe.
I was transfixed. I'd never seen a hound be a hound before. He was doing exactly what he needed to be doing. He was tired but joyful. He was late but getting there. Lost but catching up.
”
”