i8o MEMOIR OF 



"'Oh, that will never do,' he said; 'we 

 want the country ; the hounds are no use to 

 us without it.' 



" 'Then you shall have neither. Bob,' was 

 my decisive reply. 



"And so ended the negotiation. We then 

 parted, and I went on hunting the country and 

 killing the wild animal as heretofore." 



It was a real grief to Russell for many a day 

 afterwards to discover, as he very soon did, that 

 foxes in the Broadbury country became scarcer 

 and scarcer yearly, and that at length Mr. 

 Woolcombe went so far as to wage open war 

 against the wiiole race by ordering his keepers 

 and tenants to trap, shoot, and destroy every fox 

 they found bred or travelling over his estate. 

 And so rigorously was this mandate executed, 

 that a paragraph appeared in the papers 

 announcing the number of vixens and cubs he 

 had destroyed, and calculating that he had rid 

 the country of no less than two hundred and 

 fifty foxes, great, small, and forthcoming. Nay, 

 large placards were printed at Okehampton and 

 posted in the neighbourhood, setting forth the 

 above gross statement, and justifying the slaughter 

 as one of meritorious service to the whole 

 community. 



But although at the time it was denounced 

 as a most unneighbourly proceeding on the part 

 of Mr. Woolcombe, there are good grounds now 



