Fitz Coppice — A Hp'm from P'lmliilL 78 



only to disappear suddenly, as far as scent was concerned, 

 when Adcott and Nescliff were reckoned upon as 

 possibilities by those who had participated in the two 

 runs already over this line. I can offer no explanation 

 of this sudden termination of what seemed to promise so 

 well. Thatcher cast forward a trifle fast, considering 

 that he had so small a pack with him, but the rest came 

 up soon, and did not help matters. A long trot was now 

 decreed to Pimhill, which, on such a beautiful afternoon, 

 was really pleasant. The hounds were put in on the 

 Harmer Hill side the covert, and drew it southwards. 

 A fox was soon on his legs, and tried to break on the top, 

 but the wind and a riding-habit was conspicuous in his 

 mask, and he turned down the wood at the Preston 

 Gubbalds side, and went away down wind at the bottom. 

 It was one of the prettiest sights I have enjoyed this year, 

 to see this beautiful long fox extending himself down the 

 meadows, and the pack going great guns almost in the 

 same field with him (for Borderer had run shy ; he 

 had not surmounted Pimhill, but ensconced behind a 

 holly bush in the road opposite). There they came, 

 black leading — a regular black doctor — then a couple of 

 pinks, and a cluster, with a lady among them on a good- 

 looking grey roan. That second fence with the ox rail 

 I am sure has a big ditch — some land with a peck ; all 

 get safely over. I must stop and gape no longer, for 

 unless I push on down the hill I shall fail to cut in with 

 the foremost pursuers. Such a nice line of flying easy 

 fences intervenes until the next road is crossed, and 

 Middle Park looms closely before us, not to be entered 

 to-day, for hounds swing for Harmer Hill, touch the 

 quarries for a moment, only to recross the road, and 

 take us into what appears at first sight to be a hairy 

 country, but really has no terrors of an extraordinary 

 kind, and once more we are at Pimhill, and to ground. 

 All who got away voted it a very pretty little twenty 

 minutes' ring, while the rear guard, who have had to 

 disengage themselves from the top of the hill, voted it 

 nothing at all. We will agree to differ. Preston 

 Gubbalds soon put us going again at its extreme lower 

 end, where our fox broke on our Albrighton day, and the 

 veritable same fellow he must have been, for he pointed 

 Hadnal way, and then made himself safe in the identical 

 drain that gave him a hiding place then. Curiously 



