210 



FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



like frosty ground, and am not ashamed to own it. But this 

 chanced to be a day of gruesome peril to the emissary of " the- 

 Field, the Farm, and the Garden" in fair Northamptonshire. 

 And the least of these perils was occasioned by the frost. 

 Whence came the others, then? Why, from the porter, the 

 pig, and the sheep — and in degree according to the order 

 named. Let all this of course be included in a single 

 parenthesis, only to instance how dangerous, even to the most 

 careful and over experienced, is the wild pursuit of the fox. 



To begin with, the railway porter pushed his timid hunter,, 

 with its possibly more timid freight, backward during the 

 process of mounting — till the pair were involved in a struggle 

 for very existence, on the metal-edge of a deep wagon-cutting. 

 The pig raced him up the straight of the second field from the 

 gorse, and with a wild grunt charged his left front — causing a 

 sudden check that might well have dislodged a man of ordinate 





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length of leg. A wicked sheep left the scudding flock, and the- 

 good quad, cleared twenty feet of fearful space to leave the 

 beast untouched. Truly I am glad to be working pen and 

 cigar in the peaceful security of the " home-ranche." Yes, I 

 bested my sheep — though an old and valued friend fared worse 



