202 REMINISCENCES OF 



generally breaks. However, before I got there, two 

 were holloaed away. In going up the ride I crossed 

 two lines of foxes, and some hounds broke away on 

 each, so I arrived with only four couple. However, 

 they came dropping on, and as soon as I got twelve 

 couple I went away with them. We had just got 

 over the Edgecot road and down the hill, where our 

 fox had turned to the right, when something headed 

 him, and he turned back in front of the hounds, in 

 the same field with them, and away they went over 

 those fine grass fields. Somehow another fox ap- 

 peared, and the two ran close together up to the 

 Grendon and Marsh Gibbon road. I had a bad 

 start, being the wrong side of a big fence, and only 

 caught them there. The fox had run up the road 

 towards me, and gone through the gate opposite to 

 which I came into the road. The twelve couple on 

 the line were two fields to my left, and five couple 

 scoring to the cry in the next field to me. When I 

 whistled the five couple nicked the scent first, and 

 then away they went in earnest — seventeen couple 

 over Marsh Gibbon Field, all grass, very deep, 

 double fences and brooks. We began by crossing 

 the brook twice, a double which thinned the field 

 down to seven or eight, George Drake being first, 

 Bill Holland and myself and Ned Drake next, Henry 

 Lambton and Ned Harrison a little behind us, and I 

 never saw any one else. At the Ham Green road 

 the fox ran up the road a little way, the leading four 

 couple flashed on and missed the turn, but the body 

 hunted the line through. I did not get them to- 



