THE HUNTED FOX AND HIS WILES 167 



arch of the bridge and continued his way down stream 



by the side of the river. I think that fox must have 



been born under a most unlucky star, for I always 



considered it a bit of a fluke that we killed him. 



The fox had taken to the road for some little distance 



before he came to the bridge, where hounds threw 



up. On the right-hand side of the road was a high 



wall, quite unjumpable, and joining the parapet of 



the bridge. On the left or up-stream side it was 



easy to jump from the road into the fields just at 



the end of the bridge where the dry arch was. 



Without hesitation our huntsman jumped into the 



field, and on landing saw the dry arch and passed 



through it, thus putting such hounds as followed 



him at once on the line of their fox ; and the rest 



of the pack scoring to cry, they killed a little further 



down the river bank. Piscator declared that there 



were no foot-people or carts on his side of the river 



to head the fox, and that his jumping down, recrossing 



the stream, and passing through the dry arch was 



simply a clever plan to evade his foes and gain the 



shelter of big woods about two miles below the bridge. 



Some hounds were feathering along the roadway of 



the bridge when the huntsman turned off into the 



field above it, and, unless he knew of the dry arch 



and was determined to make good the ground in 



the direction of the shelter, I never could understand 



why he did not hold his hounds across the bridge. 



But he was one whose sagacity was seldom at fault, 



and was a worthy match for even so clever a fox 



as this one, who, I almost forgot to say, had run over 



fourteen miles before he reached the river, which 



