138 MEMOIR OF 



the head which is said to be worth two on the 

 heel — had been handed about in front of the 

 mansion, Blatchford, the keeper, at a given 

 signal, ungorsed the upper entrances just before 

 the hounds came up ; then put in a terrier at 

 the lower end, and away. 



It never failed ; but it was a curious fact that 

 foxes bolted from the Newton Wood earth, at 

 one end of the park, almost invariably made 

 for the wilds of Dartmoor, while those found 

 in the Townleigh earth, on the other side of 

 the park, broke away in quite a different 

 direction. It puzzled even Russell to account 

 for the why and the wherefore of this under- 

 standing between the fox families, but so it was. 



The secret was well kept for years ; but the 

 certainty of having a fox on foot directly after 

 the sherry had been imbibed, gave rise to many 

 strange reports on the subject : some said it 

 was a bagman from Leadenhall Market : others 

 fancied — the natives notablv — that there was 

 some "whistness," or witchcraft, in the business; 

 it might be, as they thought, the work of 

 Dick Down, the old huntsman who was eaten 

 by the Hayne hounds, and whose ghost was 

 known to haunt the covers round the park. 

 But Mr. John Crocker Bulteel, in his humor- 

 ous mood, gave another version of the matter, 

 and amused the county with a story which 

 Blatchford, he said, had told him, when he 



