114 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND FRAIRIE. 



enthusiasm ; and took his part with the others in parading a 

 muddy lane while strange sounds betokened a covert being 

 drawn. But this over, he was told to wade into and through a 

 deep banked bottom below the spinney, and to lift his master 

 some twelve feet up the boggy ascent out of the rivulet. This 

 to the untutored mind was no mere pleasant variation of labour, 

 far less a recreation — nay, it was an insult to education and pro- 

 fession that even knotted whipcord had never implied. And he 

 resented it ; down went his aged head ; up went his venerable 

 back — and the wicked perverter of destiny was shot comfortably 

 back into the bog from which he had just been carried. 



In this country, if a poor man catches our horse, we always 

 give a coin if we've got it, a courteous blessing if we haven't. I 

 got only the last ; but with it a hearty mutual laugh, and an 

 explanation. " He's a trickey old dog, he is. He's served me 

 this way afore when I've took him hunting. You see I ain't got 

 much of a bridle, and he catches me unawares-like." 



Monday, March 19, with the Quorn fixing Great Dalby in 

 place of a meet north of the "Wreake, gave Gartree Hill for the 

 morning, and Barkby Holt for the afternoon — the distant com- 

 bination resulting in a day's sport nearly first-rate. A trifle 

 more scent would have raised it to quite that standard ; for 

 foxes were found readily, travelled readily, and in the main chose 

 a good country. The wind still hailed from somewhere in the 

 north, with a piercing venom that declared itself most on the 

 way home. But the frost of previous nights had waned away — 

 or confined itself to the higher ground of Til ton, &c, which just 

 came within a day's doings. Of course there can be little morn- 

 ing, when you are called to the meet at 12 — and when nobody 

 turns up till 12.30 — but the first run is always dubbed the morn- 

 ing event. To-day it began at once, with a vixen and two others 

 setting off in close company up the Little Dalby Hill — and all 

 plainly to be seen squatting and hesitating as they met the 

 populace on the hill top. Result, some confusion and no little 

 delay. For in his career — whether as the cause or effect of 

 his shortcoming — Reynard was continually running his head 



