228 The Chase 



Aim'd well, the Chieftain's lance has flown ; 

 Struggling in blood the savage lies ; 

 His roar is sunk in hollow groan — 

 Sound, merry huntsmen ! sound the pryse ! 



Sir fValter Scott. 



At Walden sip»« s^ <s> v£> 



IN dark winter mornings, or in short winter 

 afternoons, I sometimes heard a pack of hounds 

 threading all the woods with hounding cry and 

 yelp, unable to resist the instinct of the chase, and 

 the note of the hunting-horn at intervals, proving 

 that man was in the rear. The woods ring again, 

 and yet no fox bursts forth on to the open level of 

 the pond, nor following pack pursuing their Actaeon. 

 And perhaps at evening I see the hunters returning 

 with a single brush trailing from their sleigh for a 

 trophy, seeking their inn. They tell me that if the 

 fox would remain in the bosom of the frozen earth 

 he would be safe, or if he would run in a straight 

 line away no fox-hound could overtake him ; but, 

 having left his pursuers far behind, he stops to rest 

 and listen till they come up, and when he runs he 

 circles round to his old haunts, where the hunters 

 await him. Sometimes, however, he will run upon 

 a wall many rods, and then leap off far to one side, 

 and he appears to know that water will not retain 

 his scent. A hunter told me that he once saw a 

 fox pursued by hounds burst out on to Walden 

 when the ice was covered with shallow puddles, 

 run part way across, and then return to the same 

 shore. Ere long the hounds arrived, but here they 

 lost the scent. Sometimes a pack hunting by them- 

 selves would pass my door, and circle round my 

 house, and yelp and bound without regarding me, 



