144 



FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



form a second parapet on the ditch side. But if the lingering 

 nightmare of that foggy ride has any vestige of truth in its dim 

 outline, still before my eyes, the leaders dwelt not in their 

 frenzied career, but cleared, or crashed through, two or three of 

 these at almost half-mile intervals. A roadside plantation came 

 next, and the hedgecutter was still at work strewing his thorns 

 alongside his wall of binders, as hounds dived into and through 

 the little wood. " Up to the top-end, and you'll catch 'em at 

 the bridle-gate ! " sung out the knight of the bill-hook. But 

 either deaf to the advice, or in despair at the rapidity with 

 which the pack were again vanishing, the recipient of the 

 caution chanced thorns and new cut hedge in his headlong 

 gallop — entering the wood with a thud and a crash that should 

 have sounded as a useful fog-signal to those behind. Mean- 

 while the two whips and Mrs. Bunbury (who alone of the field 

 saw the whole of this curious run) had hit the bridle-gate, and 

 followed by Mrs. Jones and Captain Riddell, shortly reached 



the wood of Mantel's Heath — after as quick and disastrous a 

 twenty minutes as hounds ever ran. The famous Belvoir 

 bitches, I swear it, never travelled faster. 



