THE HUNTED FOX AND HIS WILES 169 



been proved, and the M.F.H. is now inclined to think 

 that there was no change at all. When the country- 

 man in that tiny valley just before the end gave 

 us news that he had viewed him recently, hounds 

 had their hackles up and crossed the little strath 

 with such fire that it certainly seemed " all up " with 

 Reynard. No covert lay in front, and the sea cliffs 

 near Tramore seemed much too distant. Then came 

 the road, then the lane, with the burnt hillside on the 

 right, up which hounds puzzled so perseveringly till 

 all traces were lost ; but there was a farmhouse just 

 to the right of the end of the lane — a farm, and a 

 stack of straw, and a ladder leaning up against it. 

 An hour after hounds had left comes the farmer with 

 his pitchfork, and climbing the ladder, finds the travel- 

 worn fox, who had climbed up the ladder, and now 

 decamped by the same means. 



In a rough part of South Kilkenny hunted by the 

 Waterford hounds, it is an old trick for Reynard to 

 run along the top of these rough stone walls for 

 a considerable distance, when only very tender-nosed 

 hounds can make it good. During Mr. Pollok's 

 mastership of the Waterford, they hunted a fox for 

 over a mile and a half completely round Corbally 

 Wood ; he ran along the top of the wall all the time, 

 and continued to travel along an adjoining wall on 

 the north side of the hill. Mr. Sargent, in his 

 Thoughts on S'port, also relates an instance of a 

 bitch named Matchless, bred by Henry Lord Water- 

 ford, running her fox along the walls in South 

 Kilkenny. 



One of the most curious endeavours of a beaten fox 



