206 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



was as obvious as the disaster was pronounced. An oxrail on 

 the farther bank had been invisible through the taller hedge — 

 and a good man had gone down. The grass now rode bitterly 

 deep ; the pace was tremendous as ever — and hounds led their 

 field well to the Oxford Canal, Messrs. Onslow (10th Hussars) 

 and Bunbury, with Lord Willoughby, cutting out all the work 

 on the right, Mr. Hanbury doing the same office on the left — 

 and so we rose to the road leading into Prior's Hardwick (now 

 a quarter of a mile away), where perhaps a dozen or more men 

 gathered while hounds feathered for another brief moment. 

 (When I have mentioned Sir F. Wilmington, Major Long, Mr. 

 Rhodes, Mr. Leon, Mr. Watson, I think I have enumerated the 

 few I was in a position to recognize — though I have a promi- 

 nent recollection of two other blackcoats in the prime of youth 

 and tailoring, and again of a brown and well serviced hat, and 

 again of a covert coat beneath a face I ought to know. But let 

 me, prithee, be forgiven.) Nor can I say exactly how we came, 

 •except that it was in a very straight line to the village of 

 Priors Marston — thirty-five minutes to here, as good as shall be 

 seen this season — pace wonderful and country superb. That if 

 we did not pass actually near the covert of Watergall we at 

 least crossed its well-known brook, I'll swear, for I recognized 

 the glint of its water while just escaping the bath of a previous 

 year. Now my story must quickly close. Hounds could only 

 pick out the line over light plough to Hellidon, after their fox 

 had threaded the village last named, but at length they worked 

 it into the covert of Dane Hole. Here he was — right enough — 

 but in company with a brace of others. The difficulty of keep- 

 ing to the true line seemed insuperable — when there were no 

 less than three going forward above Oatesby. Yet, though 

 there was no possibility as yet of verifying the subject of pur- 

 suit as being still the great weary fox that had left Dane Hole 

 — it seems they never changed. For, though the chase was 

 given up at 4.30, about a mile from Staverton village, in conse- 

 quence of the probable confusion of foxes, the beaten fox (as I 

 learned on my homeward way) had barely strength to creep 



