Hunting with Hounds 193 



the rest of the hunt, by making an angle, to 

 come up. Then we jumped over a very high 

 board fence into the main road, out of it 

 again, and on over plowed fields and grass 

 lands, separated by stiff snake fences. The 

 run had been fast and the horses were be- 

 ginning to tail. By the time we suddenly 

 rattled down into a deep ravine and scrambled 

 up the other side through thick timber there 

 were but four of us left, Lodge and myself 

 being two of the lucky ones. Beyond this ra- 

 vine we came to one of the worst jumps of the 

 day, a fence out of the wood, which was prac- 

 ticable only at one spot, where a kind of cat- 

 tle trail led up to a panel. It was within an 

 inch or two of five feet high. However, the 

 horses, thoroughly trained to timber jumping 

 arid to rough and hard scrambling in awk- 

 ward places, and by this time well quieted, 

 took the bars without mistake, each one in 

 turn trotting or cantering up to within a few 

 yards, then making a couple of springs and 

 bucking over with a great twist of the power- 

 ful haunches. I may explain that there was 

 not a horse of the four that had not a record 

 of five feet six inches in the ring. We now 

 got into a perfect tangle of ravines, and the 

 fox went to earth ; and though we started one 



VOL. III. 9 



