THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 75 



These were treats of Nature which proved 

 a perpetual feast to Russell's eye ; but the 

 word "beaten" was not to be found in his 

 vocabulary ; like Robert Bruce, the oftener he 

 was defeated, the stronger grew his will to 

 conquer, and although, as Barbour relates, that 

 monarch was so hotly pursued by John of Lorn, 

 his inveterate foe, till the echoes of Scotland 

 did actually 



" . . . . ring- 

 With the bloodhounds that bayed for her fugitive king;" 



still the Bruce persevered, and did conquer in 

 the end. 



So did Russell ; but in a far more peaceful 

 wav. The change in the tide of his affairs took 

 place thus : Mr. John IVIorth Woolcombe, of 

 Ashburv, near Hatherleigh, kept at that time a 

 fine pack of hounds, averaging twenty-three 

 inches at the shoulder — foxhounds, in fact, they 

 were, as high bred as those of Meynell, although 

 it was his pleasure to pursue with them the 

 timid hare only. 



Russell, happening to meet with a farmer 

 who kept hounds in the neighbourhood of 

 Hatherleigh, and hunted indiscriminately fox, 

 hare, and otter, discovered from him that a 

 hound called Racer, drafted from Mr. Wool- 

 combe's pack, had fallen into his hands, and, 

 moreover, that he was either too fast or too 

 mute for his own old-fashioned cry. 



