26o MEMOIR OF 



hour and forty minutes, without a check, and 

 no harm happened to Rattler, notwithstanding 

 his copious hbation." 



It will be anticipated that Russell did not 

 forget to return to the hut, and console the 

 woman, not only with an immediate half-crown, 

 but with the promise of another hen at an early 

 date. 



" Dining at the late Sir Robert Sheffield's, 

 at Normanby, some years ago," writes an old 

 friend of Russell's, " I met Lord Henry Ben- 

 tinck ; and the subject of conversation turning 

 on the habits of wild foxes, I related a story 

 told me by Mr. John King, of Fowelscombe, 

 the circumstances of which he witnessed when 

 Master of the Hambledon hounds. He had 

 been running a fox merrily for upwards of forty 

 minutes ; and coming up to a farmyard, by 

 which he was making a short cut, he saw the 

 fox dash into a fiock of ducks, seize a mallard 

 just below the green of his neck, and carry him 

 off across a large field when, the hounds running 

 into him, Mr. King picked up the mallard, 

 then quivering in its last gasp, and restored it 

 to its owner. 



" ' Mr. King must be a bold man to tell 

 such a story,' remarked Lord Henry, dryly, as 

 if he utterly disbelieved it. 



" ' I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. King 

 intimately,' replied I ; ' and he was a man quite 



