BREEDING AND HUNTING OF F05iH0UNDS. 91 



where Bedfordshire and Nortliamptonshire join. 

 I put the hounds in with the comfortable assurance 

 from the clergyman, my friend, the late Mr. 

 Dickens, who looked after the cover, that '' I 

 should find nothing in it'' but a ^'shoemaker," 

 that trade being rife in the vicinity, and all its 

 members poaching rabbits. I do not think that 

 I had ever drawn it before, for its character was 

 always far from good ; however, on this day into 

 the gorse I put my hounds. 



George Carter, afterwards huntsman to the Duke 

 of Grafton, and then to Mr. Asliton Smith, was my 

 first whipper-in, and Tom Skinner was my second 

 aid in that capacity. I had just remarked to 

 myself tliat the hounds ^' feathered " as if a fox were 

 not far off, when, on the contrary side from me, I 

 saw George Carter hold up his cap and sit motion- 

 less in his saddle. / hnew he saw a fox right in 

 the midst of the hounds, ancl between me and him ; 

 and that he abstained from a halloo, lest he should 

 startle the fox out of his cunning pro^Driety, and 

 make him lose his head, and get himself chapped^ 

 Of course I said not a word, but watched George 

 Carter's head turn very slowly towards the open 

 fields on his side, and then there came a wave of 



