FOX-HOUNDS. 181 



ing in front ; a couple of stiff hedges and ditches were 

 got over comfortably ; the third was a regular bulfinch, 

 six or seven feet high, with a gate so far away to the 

 right that to make for it was to lose too much time, as 

 the hounds were running breast high. Ten yards ahead 

 of me was Mr. Frank G , on a Stormer colt, evi- 

 dently with no notion of turning ; so I hardened my 

 heart, felt my bay nag full of going, and kept my eye on 

 Mr. Frank, who made for the only practicable place 

 beside an oak-tree with low branches, and, stooping his 

 head, popped through a place where the hedge showed 

 daylight, with his hand over his eyes, in the neatest 

 possible style. Without hesitating a moment I followed, 

 rather too fast and too much afraid of the tree, and 

 pulled too much into the hedge. In an instant I found 

 myself torn out of the saddle, balanced on a blackthorn 

 bough (fortunately I wore leathers), and deposited on the 

 right side of the hedge on my back ; whence I rose just 

 in time to see Bay Middleton disappear over the next 

 fence. So there I was alone in a big grass field, with 

 strong notions that I should have to walk an unknown 

 number of miles home. Judge of my delight as I paced 

 slowly along running was of no use at seeing Frank 



G returning with my truant in hand. Such en 



action hi the middle of a run deserves a Humane 

 Society's medal. To struggle breathless into my seat ; 

 to go off at score, to find a lucky string of open gates, to 

 come upon the hounds at a check, was my good fortune. 

 But our fox was doomed in another quarter of an hour 

 at a hand gallop we hunted him into a shrubbery, across 

 a home field into an ornamental clump of laurels, back 

 again to the plantation, where a couple and a half of 

 leading hounds pulled him down, and he was brought 

 out by the first whip dead and almost stiff, without a 



