228 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND Pit A HUE. 



minutes interval, a young uneducated pack flung themselves 

 into his track, as if the heather blossom were still quivering 

 from his tread — not as fox-hounds stoop and drive and cry, but 

 silently jumping and snatching at it, as if to pick the scent where 

 it hung high on the flower ; stealing forward noiselessly, but no 

 less swiftly and determinedly. Up an open gully they sped, the 

 huntsman and others (chiefly, I fancy, novices, who, like your 

 correspondent, wished to see and learn all they could of the 

 game) riding parallel above them — the old hands getting on to 

 head of the ravine, there to wait their coming. Across the main 

 heath road, through a gateway in the huge banked fence, such 

 as divide these moors into their separate sheep-walks — and now 

 we are embarked on the open forest, nothing but wild common 

 for miles before us. The heather is knee deep, often girth deep ; 

 but the ground underneath it as sound as old turf, and horses 

 rake over it with a freedom and safety that the new comer can 

 scarcely credit. But example lends confidence ; and soon he 

 learns that he too may gallop, and must gallop, if he would see 

 his share of the fun. If his horse be, like him, new to the 

 country, he may likely enough, bound and jump at the waves of 

 heather and fern — but only for a first few strides ; the pace is 

 too good for that ; and no less quickly than his rider will he 

 be warmed to emulation by the rushing forms alongside. 



Hounds are only seen as they bound over the smothering 

 growth, searching and catching at the scent as they leap. No 

 pack could carry a head (as a foxhunter understands the term) 

 over ground so hampered as this ; and already the pack is string- 

 out, like a comet in its swift course. That the scent of a deer 

 is, in all its characteristics, entirely different from that of the 

 fox, a single fortnight's experience fully convinces one. As has 

 been noted before, time has comparatively little effect on the 

 former : and hounds can apparently run it as vigorously at the 

 end of an hour as when the stag is just before them. A hot 

 fresh scent of the deer seems to have none of the maddening 

 power of that of the fox — to send them driving and flinging, 

 with every tongue loosened and every hound striving for the 



