THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 23 



Russell's patience as a quiet looker-on was 

 not long tried ; for even now the heads of 

 the leading hounds were turning towards him, 

 and he could distinctly hear the deep chop of 

 their musical tongues, as, sinking the valley 

 near Tarrsteps, they crossed the Barle and 

 pointed directly for Hawkridge Moor. 



Jack was now in his glory, alongside them 

 on a willing steed, and they tearing ahead over 

 the purple heather, as if on the very haunches 

 of their game. With a trimming scent and 

 never a check, it lasted for three long hours, 

 when the deer, to baffle the pack, took soil 

 under Slade Bridge, sinking himself in a deep 

 pool and allowing little more than his nostrils 

 to appear above the wave. 



But the stratagem availed him not a rush ; 

 some five or six couple of old hounds dashed 

 into the stream, and swimming in full cry, 

 passed over him at first for a hundred or more 

 yards ; when James Tout, the huntsman, turned 

 the pack, and then casting them steadily back, 

 they winded him at once in his retreat. Every 

 hound was at him in an instant, and a gambol 

 of porpoises in that moorland stream could 

 scarcely have created a greater commotion. 

 '^ There stood the stag, beneath them in the 

 stream," writes Charles Kingsley, who must have 

 witnessed a similar turmoil, " his back against 

 the black rock, with its green cushions of 



