THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 227 



Scent breast high from first to last. I then 

 rode to Ash, Mr. Mallet's place, dined there, 

 and danced afterwards till one o'clock ; went to 

 bed and rose again at three ; pulled on my 

 top-boots and rode down to Bodmin, just fifty 

 miles, and met Tom Hext's hounds about five 

 miles from that town. Found a good fox and 

 killed him ; dined w'ith my old friend Pomeroy 

 Gilbert, and again did not get to bed — much 

 against my rule — till the little hours. Rested 

 the next day, if walking several miles to a 

 country fair could be called resting ; then off next 

 morning at three ; rode back to Iddesleigh. 

 took out the hounds, found a fox in Dowland, 

 and killed him close to the Schoolmaster Inn 

 in Chaw^leigh parish, twelve miles as the crow 

 flies. I then turned my horse's head for Tor- 

 down, and was sitting down to dinner at my 

 ow^n table, and all the hounds home, at six 

 o'clock, the distance being fully twenty miles 

 from the said Schoolmaster Inn to this house." 



Owing to a succession of bad harvests 

 throughout the land, Irish oatmeal, the staple 

 food of hounds, had risen about this time to a 

 price unheard of since the war with France ; 

 and it was with no little alarm that many an 

 M.F.H. found himself compelled to give ;£i6, or 

 even £iS per ton, for w^hat he could have 

 purchased aforetime at the lower sum of ;^'i2. 

 Not a few, accordingly, with an eye to economy, 



