THE BLACK FOX OF BERRYDALE. 455 



Frost had gone, and the Pytchley had come to Maidwell. 

 Twenty minutes were given to our hosts. Then for Berry dale 

 and a black-red fox afoot soon after half-past eleven. The 

 thaw astonished Northamptonshire. London had heard nothing 

 of it. So a score of riders made the meet, and three score the 

 day's field. 



But let us get on, over the green brow whereon the sheep 

 had already bunched up together ere the black fox passed. 

 Straggling out, men and hounds, from the hillside copse. Do 

 you notice that the dog hounds — of each and every pack, I 

 mean — never tumble out so blithely, or drive into it so viciously 

 at starting, as do the sharper sex. In my ignorance I murmured 

 for a mile or two, " There is only a quarter of a scent," while we 

 rode the Cottesbrooke estate. But dog hounds, once together 

 and once in fling, can kill a fox on a fair scenting day with 

 more certainty than the little ladies, so say the huntsmen, and 

 so am I, an outsider, bound to concur. Within Cottesbrooke's 

 green sweeping basin, we are prone to think ourselves swim- 

 ming within a circle — working within a mystic ring as it were 

 — just as one's eyesight can be spun round by Pears' magical 

 red radiant in the puzzle which, with so many other devices, 

 goes to advertise his soap. Well, men forgot the basin and its 

 environs to-day, and they rode the well-fenced arc rather than 

 the gates. Scent warmed, the pack were well in front, and the 

 black fox within distance. Before Purser's Hill he was to be 

 seen streaking across the valley, while hounds drove on his line, 

 and we trotted across to regain first wind. Over the next hill- 

 top and " into the country " northward, John and Mr. Jameson 

 demonstrating the said country to be more easy than it looked. 

 "How did it ride to Hazlebeech?" " Excellently, my lord ,: 

 (eighteen minutes). And more excellently still Hazlebeech, in 

 a half circle to Scotland Wood (thirty minutes). And yet by 

 the way he touched the fowlhouses of Hazlebeech one might 

 have thought he was a dying fox. He was only seeking the 

 evergreen squire. Finding him not, he displayed the next valley 

 to such substitutes as he could find to wit, those above-named, 



