THE CAPTIVE FOX. 191 



A pleasant line the captive took, 



Avoiding the doubles and shirking the brook ; 



As you may imagine he went by rule, 



Only taking the fences he learnt at school. 



Five hounds of Baron Rothschild's breed, 



Unmatch'd for courage and strength and speed, 



Close on his flying traces they came. 



And almost won the desperate game ; 



Just as the Earl prepared to sound 



The dread " Whoo Whoop," he went to ground ; 



So they dug him out, the Earl and his groom. 



The Huntsman and Whip, and the man with the broom. 



The fox and the hounds are at Tring again, 



And his lordship return'd by the four o'clock train. 



The well-known Jem Morgan, who hunted Mr. 

 Conyer's hounds in Essex for some years, was Lord 

 Lonsdale's huntsman, and, although he enjoyed his ride 

 over the fine grass country round Aylesbury, he never 

 could be reconciled to hunting the " Bagman." Poor 

 old Morgan was pensioned off by his lordship, but not 

 long after broke his neck from a fall off his horse while 

 hunting with the Old Berkeley near Chesham. After 

 he fell he remounted his horse, viewed the fox away, 

 gave the " Tally ho ! " and followed over two fields, but 

 felt faint, and rode to a neighbouring farmhouse, laid 

 down on a sofa, and, when the doctor came to examine 

 him, he raised himself up, his head fell forward, and he 

 died instantly. He was a rare specimen of a true 

 sportsman, a most courteous man, and as fine a horse- 

 man as ever crossed a saddle. 



" The noble art of self-defence" has, after some half- 

 century of slumber, apparently reviv^ed, but under the 

 milder name of a glove-fight. Probably the science of 

 defence can be as well practised with gloves as with the 



