THE REV. JOHN RUSSELL. 239 



appeared a marvel to all ; for, occupying in the 

 very heart of it an extensive area, comprising 

 many square miles of cultivated farms, moors, 

 and deep woodlands, in which game was 

 strictly preserved, dwelt a magnate of the 

 land, and one whose hostility, on political 

 grounds, Russell had been unfortunate enough 

 to provoke. 



Tenants and keepers, accordingly, had re- 

 ceived peremptory orders not only to forbid 

 Russell from drawing the covers, but to wage 

 an exterminating war against foxes, old and 

 young, by trapping and digging them out at all 

 seasons of the year ; still, notwithstanding that 

 edict, Russell found means to keep up a fair 

 stock on every side of that wide domain — 

 indeed, now and again, the very tenants them- 

 selves hesitated not, on discovering a litter laid 

 up on the grounds, to take measures for securing 

 its safety, either by smoking the earth, or warn- 

 ing some friend to fox-hunting that the sooner 

 the cubs were disturbed the better it would be 

 for their lives. 



About a month before the first meeting of 

 the club at South Molton, in November, 1845, 

 a farmer living near Exford, a parish in Somer- 

 setshire beyond the left bank of the Barle, 

 foreboding ill to a litter he had long guarded as 

 the apple of his eye, wrote a letter to Russell, 

 beseeching him, in short but pithy terms, to 



