A COOL, QUICK, PENULTIMATE. 



121 



forward fast enough, with no difficulties to encounter but the 

 pace. Firr's horn sends out one shrill blast as he gallops up 

 the meadow with the tail hounds — and a dozen riders swing 

 •over the two fences to join him as he issues on to the wide- 

 grassed road above. The pack dash down the roadside towards 

 Willoughby ; then, in a couple of hundred yards glide through 

 the side fence, and seem to slip out of grasp at once. Indeed 

 for the next five-and-twenty minutes the best-mounted and 



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most determined of enemies could not jump on their backs ; for 

 they made all their own running, and won in a canter at Shoby 

 Scoles. Having started close at their fox, he never got away 

 from them, till he popped underground just before them. 



Over grass and over plough alike they raced — turning and 

 twisting as they went, whether in the open field or as their fox 

 dodged up a hedgerow. The pace and the short quick turns 

 threw out many men who would, and perhaps should, have been 

 with them. For instance, that first broad road carried several 

 over the mark, at the moment when — attended closely by the 

 huntsman, Capt. Smith, and Mr. Cecil Chaplin — the pack 

 struck off to the left, to race over a field or two of grass and 

 deep fresh-sown pieces of plough. Over the latter hounds could 

 .go much faster than horses ; and they were well in front when, 



