TREATMENT AFTER A HARD RUN 183 



here, once more, have recourse to my own stabk ; 

 and I hope the example I am about to produce will 

 not be lost on my brother fox-hunters. Some years 

 since I went to spend the week at that long-established 

 and truly sporting carnival, Shrewsbury Hunt ; and 

 on the Wednesday Sir Richard Puleston's hounds met 

 at Atcham, the seat of Lord Berwick, about four miles 

 from the town. I had out on that day a very good 

 mare, called Barmaid ; and as I had also at that time 

 a very good groom. Barmaid was very fit to go. I 

 likewise had in the field a bay horse, which I had pur- 

 chased a few days before from Mr Underbill, at that 

 time a great Shropshire horse-dealer, and which, as 

 might be expected, was not at all fit to go. I rode 

 the mare myself, and my groom rode the horse, with 

 directions to put him along as far as he could without 

 distressing him, and then to pull him up. It so 

 happened that we had a remarkably fine run over the 

 severest part of Shropshire — the base of the Wrekin 

 — when our fox, being headed, retraced his steps, and 

 was killed in the plantation where we found him. 

 There was a large field out, and of course a great deal 

 of distress ; but the mare carried me close to the 

 hounds the whole way, took her fences clear to the 

 last, and enabled me to see what I do not recollect 

 to have ever seen since — namely, a young hound 

 snatch at the fox as he met him in a ride in the covert, 

 when dying before the pack ; but on his shewing him 

 his teeth, with a sort of convulsive grin peculiar to 

 this gallant animal in the last struggle for his life, the 

 puppy dropped his stem and suffered the fox to pass 



