THE CHACE. 
certainty of finding was confirmed ; the music of the 
pack increased ; and, the game being up, away went 
the hounds " in a crash." Both trail and drag are at 
present but little thought of; hounds merely draw over 
ground most likely to hold the game they are in quest 
of, and thus, in a great measure, rely upon chance for 
coming across it ; for if a challenge be heard, it can 
only be inferred that a fox has been on foot in the night 
the scent being seldom sufficient to enable the hound 
to carry it up to his kennel. Advantages, however, as 
far as sport is concerned, attend the present hour of 
meeting in the field. Independently of the misery of 
riding many miles in the dark, which sportsmen of the 
early part of the last century were obliged to do, the 
game., when it is now aroused, is in a better state to 
encounter the great speed of modern hounds, having 
had time to digest the food which it has partaken of in 
the night, previously to its being stirred. But it is only 
since the great increase of hares and foxes that the aid 
of the trail and drag could be dispensed with, without 
the frequent recurrence of blank days, which now 
seldom happen. 
Compared with the luxurious ease with which the 
modern sportsman is conveyed to the field either 
lolling in his chaise and four, or galloping along at 
the rate of twenty miles an hour on a hundred-guinea 
hack the situation of his predecessor was all but dis- 
tressing. In proportion to the distance he had to ride 
by starlight were his hours of rest broken in upon; 
