i^iKing; to f^ouutJg. 131 



hanging brushwood, will proclaim to you as surely 

 as Jack's welcome ^'forrard away" has often done, 

 that the}^ have broken covert. 



Moreover, if this plan was generally adopted, and 

 the officials alone took up vantage points without it, 

 how many more good runs should not we have to 

 record, and how seldom should we be doomed to 

 sit shivering in our saddles until a good fox, heart- 

 broken from being so constantly headed back after 

 repeated rings around it, was eventually pulled down 

 within the precincts of the covert he was in reality 

 onl}^ too anxious to quit an hour before. 



Scent we cannot ensure ; but many a run, which 

 might otherwise have been a clinker, has, on a good 

 scenting day, been spoiled by the heart of a good fox 

 being broken before he has been able to get away 

 from covert. At one point he possibly encountered 

 some cunning sportsman sitting down wind eager 

 for a start ; whilst at another, as he neared the 

 border of the wood, his intended course of action 

 had to be abandoned owing to the silly prattle of 

 some noisy group, or splashing patter of hurrying 

 horseman along the headland without, attracted by 

 the now approaching chorus of the pack. Persons 

 thus acting, although they no doubt professedly come 

 out to partake in a day's sport, do, as a matter of 

 fact, as much individuall}- or collectively to spoil 



