226 MEMOIR OF 



again.' He then jumped off his horse, took the 

 hound between his knees, and drawing a small 

 scissors from his pocket-book, he instantly and 

 most cleverly cut out a great R in the hair of 

 Waverley's ribs. 'There,' he said, 'no matter 

 where he turns up now, he'll be sent back to 

 my kennel for fifty miles round.' 



"True enough, we found in Whityfield, 

 Leveller, Gameboy, and Falstaff breaking almost 

 on his back, as the fox, a white-tagged old 

 Hector, put his head straight for Henstridge, 

 where, after a sharp burst, he saved his brush 

 by going to ground. Found No. 2 at Arlington ; 

 ran to Youlston, Cocksley, Pigslake Wood, crossed 

 the river, and killed him by moonlight in a 

 cottage above Goodleigh. The whole village, 

 with the parson at their head — one of that good 

 old sort yclept Harding, of Upcot — turning out 

 to greet Russell and welcome his field." 



" But Russell, too, as well as his hounds, must 

 have been in fine form at that time, or the 

 hardihood even of his frame could never have 

 stood the strain imposed on it by the four 

 following days' work, which, by an old letter of 

 his, is thus recorded : " I left this house (Tor- 

 down) on one eventful morning, rode to Iddes- 

 leigh (twenty miles), whither I had sent the 

 hounds the evening before, found a fox and 

 killed him during one of the most awful storms 

 of thunder, lightning, and rain I ever saw. 



