THE BEST RUN I EVER SAW. 29 



That was a trappy place ! A cart-road with broad 

 ruts, eight or nine inches deep, on the landing side of 

 the fence ; but the old horse generally has a leg to 

 spare, and we are speeding on again. 



The hounds are heading now for - Great 

 Woods, which are many acres in extent, and quite 

 fill yonder punchbowl - shaped hollow. It is about 

 half a mile across at the widest part. There are 

 earths in those woods, and in April, out of considera- 

 tion to the " teeming mothers of the vulpine race," 

 there can be no earth-stopping. Here, then, our 

 gallop must end. 



No ; for see, the hounds keep away from the 

 wood. 



The fox has run parallel with its upper edge, and 

 taken a semicircular course through the great grass- 

 fields that surround it. He was too hot to enter the 

 woodlands, so circled round them, looking and long- 

 ing no doubt, and then held on again. Once more it 

 is " forrard, forrard," but nobody says so. Hounds 

 are nearly running away from us as it is. 



We learnt afterwards that the main body of the 

 field, who had been thrown out at the boggy brook 

 and thus left behind at the outset, had considered 

 these woods the fox's most likely point, and had 

 made straight for them. Scarcely had they got in 

 sight of them, coming by the valley below, when they 

 saw the hounds with their few followers swing round 

 the top and disappear again. The pace we were 

 going at may be judged from the fact that when they 

 reached the top, having, as may be imagined, lost no 



