i%itiincj; to i^ountJ^. 133 



they will then pursue, instead of being the bright- 

 coated nimble animal you stared in the face some 

 half-hour back, is (though in reality the same) but a 

 miserable, panting, heart-broken, draggled object, the 

 best of whose strength has been already expended 

 in avoiding you, and such as you, and who cannot 

 at best be expected to stand up before hounds for 

 long, if he does not, as is probable, take shelter in 

 the first dry drain he knows of, but a few fields distant. 

 Whereas, had he made his point good when he first 

 essayed to break ; had you, that is to say, been inside 

 the covert instead of without it, those rare powers of 

 endurance which he then possessed would have been 

 expended in giving us all a run worthy of the name 

 over the beautiful and surrounding vale, which wished 

 for contingency your selfishness or ignorance has 

 alone changed into the morning's doings which I 

 have passingly alluded to as probable. Yet, notwith- 

 standing all this, you will as likely as not have the 

 audacity to style that fox a bad one, whose inability 

 to provide sport you were alone responsible for. "A 

 bad one ! " forsooth ; the epithet, I think, might 

 with more justice be applied by other sportsmen to 

 the utterer ! 



But let us now imagine that you have either acted 

 as I direct, or that reynard has, with even more than 

 his proverbial slyness, found a corner of the wood 



