WARWICK WOODLANDS. 47 



fernal pace, while that turn favored him ; but he will only see 

 us kill him, and that, too, at a respectful distance. 



Another brook stretches across our course, hurrying to join 

 the greater stream along the banks of which we have so long 

 been speeding; but this is a little one; there! we have cleared 

 it cleverly. Now ! now ! the hounds are viewing him. Poor 

 brute ! his day is come. See how he twists and doubles. Ah ! 

 now they have him ! No ! that short turn has saved him, and 

 he gains the fence he will lie down there ! No ! he stretches 

 gallantly across the next field game to the last, poor devil ! 

 There ! 



" Who-whoop ! Dead ! dead ! who-whoop !" 



And in another instant Harry had snatched him from the 

 hounds, and holding him aloft displayed him to the rest, as they 

 came up along the road. 



" A pretty burst," he said to me, " a pretty burst, Frank, and 

 a good kill ; but they can't stand before the hounds, the foxes 

 here, like our stout islanders ; they are not forced to work so 

 hard to gain their living. But now let us get homeward ; I 

 want my breakfast, I can tell you, and then a rattle at the quail. 

 I mean to get full forty brace to-day, I promise you/ 7 



"And we," said I, "have marked down fifteen brace already 

 toward it ; right in the line of our beat, Torn says." 



" That's right ; well, let us go on.' 7 



And in a short half hour we were all once again assembled 

 about Tom's hospitable board, and making such a breakfast, on 

 every sort of eatable that can be crowded on a breakfast table, 

 as sportsmen only have a right to make ; nor they, unless they 

 have walked ten, or galloped half as many miles, before it. 



Before we had been in an hour, Harry once again roused us 

 out. All had been, during our absence, fully prepared by the 

 indefatigable Tim ; who, as the day before, accoutred with 

 spare shot and lots of provender, seemed to grudge us each 

 morsel that we ate, so eager was he to see us take the field in 

 season. 



Off we went then ; but what boots it to repeat a thrice told 

 tale ; suffice it, that the dogs worked as well as dogs can work ; 

 that birds were plentiful, and lying good ; that we fagged hard, 

 and shot on the whole passably, so that by sunset we had ex- 

 ceeded Harry's forty brace by fifteen birds, and got beside nine 

 couple and a half of woodcock ; which we found, most unex- 

 pectedly, basking themselves in the open meadow, along the 





