Only my Lady did not give chase ; for when she had put her head out of the window , her night-wig fell into the garden , and she had to ring up her lady 's - maid , and send her down for it privately , which quite put her out of the running , so that she came in nowhere , and is consequently not placed . In a word , never was there heard at Hall Place -- not even when the fox was killed in the conservatory , among acres of broken glass , and tons of smashed flower-pots -- such a noise , row , hubbub , babel , shindy , hullabaloo , stramash , charivari , and total contempt of dignity , repose , and order , as that day , when Grimes , gardener , the groom , the dairymaid , Sir John , the steward , the ploughman , the keeper , and the Irishwoman , all ran up the park , shouting , `` Stop thief , '' in the belief that Tom had at least a thousand pounds ' worth of jewels in his empty pockets ; and the very magpies and jays followed Tom up , screaking and screaming , as if he were a hunted fox , beginning to droop his brush . And all the while poor Tom paddled up the park with his little bare feet , like a small black gorilla fleeing to the forest . Alas for him ! there was no big father gorilla therein to take his part -- to scratch out the gardener 's inside with one paw , toss the dairymaid into a tree with another , and wrench off Sir John 's head with a third , while he cracked the keeper 's skull with his teeth as easily as if it had been a cocoa-nut or a paving-stone . However , Tom did not remember ever having had a father ; so he did not look for one , and expected to have to take care of himself ; while as for running , he could keep up for a couple of miles with any stage-coach , if there was the chance of a copper or a cigar - end , and turn coach-wheels on his hands and feet ten times following , which is more than you can do . 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 XXXXX 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 .
If after as before in like off on though through