OF INTEREST AND AMUSEMENT 103 



spring morning, when I was told that the hounds 

 were in the covert hunting hard, it proved to be 

 Racer enjoying himself thoroughly, and letting all 

 the world know he had found a fox. He went back 

 to kennels that evening ! 



We had a great run with the Oarlow and Island 

 Hounds at the very end of the cubbing season of 

 1892, when, finding in Slocock's Gorse, hounds ran 

 by Old Leighlin and Bornafea to within a few fields 

 of Castlewarren, when they turned short and reached 

 Kellymount Hill on the southern face of which they 

 earthed their fox in a rabbit-hole among some furze 

 bushes, after what Mr. Robert Watson termed, as I 

 well remember " a glorious wild fox-hunt " of an hour 

 and forty minutes. Horses, even in the very last 

 days of October, are hardly in trim for such a run 

 as that, but on Kellymount Hill the short grass rode 

 firm and light, the small fences had gaps in each of 

 them ; and so a few of us were able to see ho^v hounds 

 strained up along the sides of the little banks, and 

 twisted through the gaps after the dead-beateti fox, 

 which was being constantly viewed, and first through 

 every one of the gaps came little Racer, with his 

 hackles erect. Poor Racer ! He deserved a better 

 fate than the poison which subsequently laid him 

 low. 



Foreman, even in puppyhood, was a hound of quite 

 another type. A fine, upstanding dog, who was also 

 most companionable with me, but of so quarrelsome 

 a disposition that I seldom dared to take him outside 

 the place. He was the terror of certain children who 

 used to pass the stable-yard, taking a short cut to 



