9.2 HUNTING AND SPORTING NOTES, 



dear to him, who were destined to prolong the name and 

 fame of the family. To turn from the moving Lps and 

 heaving breast of the invalid to the picture was a relief, 

 and the effort of many to hide their feelings was only too 

 apparent. lS"obody was forgotten on the occasion, and it 

 was quite one o'clock before the hunt breakfast was over, 

 and Goodall, with the dog pack, trotted off to draw the 

 hanging woods that border the park above the Dee. Few 

 but the over eager ones seemed to care, vs^hen after 

 about twenty minutes drawing a view halloa proclaimed 

 a fox to be on foot. Still less chance did he seem to have 

 of effecting his escape, so that after a scamper across a 

 deep dingle, and up to a nice house overlooking the river, 

 people set to work to a comfortable middle-day gossip, 

 heedless of the fact that Goodall and the hounds had 

 managed to slip back up a side dingle, cross the avenue; 

 race up to the Park wall, where a good wild fox had 

 managed to scale it up some ivy, luckily close to a lodge, 

 and pop across the main road into the open beyond. 

 Borderer is seldom caught napping in this way, and he 

 congratulated himself on being one of about a score who 

 were able to catch hold of their horses' heads in the first 

 grass field, well in the w^ake of that never-to-be-denied 

 physician. It looked all over a run as we swept along the 

 grass, and hunted up to a farm-house. A ploughman, 

 two fields ahead, gave us a holloa, and down we went 

 over some respectable fences into the lower ground, 

 crossed a second road, and ran three more fields on the 

 grass into another road parallel with a brook— a check 

 here ended at once our hopes of a ran, for Goodall 

 declined to give our fox credit for good intentions, which 

 I think he had, and would not believe in his having gone 

 forward. The country was new to me, but I fancy we 

 were pointing for Wrexham. After we checked, up came 

 the majority of the galloj^ing, thrusting field, wondering 

 whatever could have come over the mind of this Park fox 

 to go away in this style. An afternoon fox from a cover 

 between here and Brynypys gave us a fast scurry over an 

 awkward line intersected with dingles, to ground near the 

 river, and then we drew up to Overton Bridge, w^hich, I 

 believe, they crossed in search of yet further sport at five 

 o'clock in the afternoon, but Borderer's discretion bid 

 him homewards bend, pondering over the morning's 

 event, rather than on the afternoon's sport. And hide it 



