68 THE WARWICK8HTEE HUNT. [I880 



Mr. Musters was off his horse baying his hounds on the eai-th. As the field 

 came up, they one and all pronounced it the best thing since Christmas. One 

 hard rider said it was by far the fastest of the season ; another said it would 

 have been perfect l)ut for the death, and asked the squire if he would not 

 dig him, as the hounds so richly deserved to taste his blood. " Why, you 

 see," said the squire, "it is a dangerous thing to dig a fox in February, 

 as it sometimes occurs that a heavy vixen is destroyed; we have had a 

 capital day, the hounds have killed once, and I think we had better 

 go home contented." Just as Mr. Musters was moidng away from the 

 earth with his hounds, as he liad anticipated, up comes the keeper, who, with 

 a demoniac grin and a most obsequioiis touch of the hat, makes his obeisance, 

 hoping that his honour had had a good run, &c., and observing, " I suppose, 

 sir, you have run to groimd." " Yes," said the sqiiire, " he has gone under, 

 keeper, and I hoiJe he is safe ; I am sure you will not allow him to be disturbed. 

 Now, pray don't let anybody destroy him by a trap, or try to dig him out on 

 any account." The villain assured him that the fox should be allowed to 

 escape, and that no one should disturb him. " That's right, keeper," rejoined 

 Mr. Musters, " I can depend on you, and I am sure you won't kill him. Good 

 night." And away they all went home, not a single soiil being in the secret 

 but the master and his whipper-in. 



As soon as the squire had arrived at home, changed his hunting coat for a 

 shooting jacket, and his hunter for a hack, he cantered ])ack some ten miles to 

 the earth to see how it would aU turn out. He arrived at the gate leading 

 into the cover just at the close of day, when that beautiful and serene half 

 hour occurs between daylight and the first shades of evening coming on, and 

 which, during a fine February, is peciiliarly striking to the admirers of the 

 beauties of nature. How changed is the scene from what it was but two short 

 hoiirs before, when the old oaks rang with the melody of the hoimds, the notes 

 of the liorn, and the manly death halloa of the master of the i^ack ! But now 

 all is as still as death, and as silent as that grave to which, poor man! he has 

 been consigned. Not a sound was to be heard, excepting perhaps the rustling 

 of the timid rabbit as it hoi)ped out to feed in the wood ride, or the well known 

 "chink, chink, chink," of the blackbird as he mobbed the brown owl, or 

 amorously wooed his newly-mated partner to the sheltered roosting place. No 

 other sound could be heard as he quietly walked his hack along the grassy 

 ride of the sheltered woodland. In a short time he apj)roaches the little knoll 

 where the earths are situated, and pulls up his horse to listen and reconnoitre 

 before he proceeds to the spot. A strange kind of subterranean sound is 

 heard of voices and the moving of earth, and it is at once evident 

 that matters are pretty much as he had expected to find them. In 

 a second, in a long and deep trench, resembling a sawpit, stripped to 

 their shirts, and delving as if tliey were on a voyage of discovery to the 

 Antijiodes, might be seen the vagabond keeper and his three assistants. They 

 seemed mighty well pleased with their work. " We shall soon have hold of 

 'un," says one. "Dom him, but I can wind him down this spout as I haA^e 

 just opened," says another. " Wait a bit," says the keeper, "while I go and 

 cut a long rose-briar to poke down the hole and comb his jacket a bit, just to 

 see where he is," for they were trying to dig the fox without a dog, as luck 

 would have it, and, suiting the action to the word, out of the trenches he 

 scrambles, and is at once confronted with 7ii»i whom, of all others, his satanic 

 majesty not excepted, he not only would much rather not have met, biit whom 



