Wherefore his pursuers found it very difficult to catch him ; and we will hope that they did not catch him at all . Tom , of course , made for the woods . He had never been in a wood in his life ; but he was sharp enough to know that he might hide in a bush , or swarm up a tree , and , altogether , had more chance there than in the open . If he had not known that , he would have been foolisher than a mouse or a minnow . But when he got into the wood , he found it a very different sort of place from what he had fancied . He pushed into a thick cover of rhododendrons , and found himself at once caught in a trap . The boughs laid hold of his legs and arms , poked him in his face and his stomach , made him shut his eyes tight -LRB- though that was no great loss , for he could not see at best a yard before his nose -RRB- ; and when he got through the rhododendrons , the hassock-grass and sedges tumbled him over , and cut his poor little fingers afterwards most spitefully ; the birches birched him as soundly as if he had been a nobleman at Eton , and over the face too -LRB- which is not fair swishing as all brave boys will agree -RRB- ; and the lawyers tripped him up , and tore his shins as if they had sharks ' teeth -- which lawyers are likely enough to have . `` I must get out of this , '' thought Tom , `` or I shall stay here till somebody comes to help me -- which is just what I do n't want . '' But how to get out was the difficult matter . And indeed I do n't think he would ever have got out at all , but have stayed there till the cock-robins covered him with leaves , if he had not suddenly run his head against a wall . Now running your head against a wall is not pleasant , especially if it is a loose wall , with the stones all set on edge , and a sharp cornered one hits you between the eyes and makes you see all manner of beautiful stars . The stars are very beautiful , certainly ; but unfortunately they go in the twenty-thousandth part of a split second , and the pain which comes after them does not . And so Tom hurt his head ; but he was a brave boy , and did not mind that a penny . He guessed that over the wall the cover would end ; and up it he went , and over like a squirrel . And there he was , out on the great grouse-moors , which the country folk called Harthover Fell -- heather and bog and rock , stretching away and up , up to the very sky . Now , Tom was a cunning little fellow -- as cunning as an old Exmoor stag . Why not ? Though he was but ten years old , he had lived longer than most stags , and had more wits to start with into the bargain . He knew as well as a stag , that if he backed he might throw the hounds out . So the first thing he did when he was over the wall was to make the neatest double sharp to his right , and run along under the wall for nearly half a mile .
Whereby Sir John , and the keeper , and the steward , and the gardener , and the ploughman , and the dairymaid , and all the hue - and-cry together , went on ahead half a mile XXXXX the very opposite direction , and inside the wall , leaving him a mile off on the outside ; while Tom heard their shouts die away in the woods and chuckled to himself merrily .
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