'You are good men to win and good men to lose,' said the old man,
'you have play in your hearts.' He began then to shuffle the cards
and to mix them, very quick and fast, till at last they could not see
them to be cards at all, but you would think him to be making rings
of fire in the air, as little lads would make them with whirling a
lighted stick; and after that it seemed to them that all the room was
dark, and they could see nothing but his hands and the cards.
And all in a minute a hare made a leap out from between his hands,
and whether it was one of the cards that took that shape, or whether
it was made out of nothing in the palms of his hands, nobody knew,
but there it was running on the floor of the barn, as quick as any
hare that ever lived.
Some looked at the hare, but more kept their eyes on the old man, and
while they were looking at him a hound made a leap out between his
hands, the same way as the hare did, and after that another hound and
another, till there was a whole pack of them following the hare round
and round the barn.
The players were all standing up now, with their backs to the boards,
shrinking from the hounds, and nearly deafened with the noise of
their yelping, but as quick as the hounds were they could not
overtake the hare, but it went round, till at the last it seemed as
if a blast of wind burst open the barn door, and the hare doubled and
made a leap over the boards where the men had been playing, and went
out of the door and away through the night, and the hounds over the
boards and through the door after it.
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