^8 FACT AGAINST ITCTIOX. 



nearly worn out. At "lajst a fox, an old one, broke 

 awa}', and the hounds marked liim into a hole in 

 a fioldj that by the fall of the lands seemed to 

 be a drain. 



It was not above twenty or thirty yards from the 

 hedge and an adjoining little spinney; so suspecting 

 where the orifice of any drain might be, I ran to 

 the ditch on the reverse side, and was in tlie act of 

 looking into the drain, when the fox, not liking the 

 roar and scratching at the other end, jumped into 

 my face, and I knocked him down with the iron 

 hammer of my whip, and before life was extinct 

 swung him into the field among the hounds. 



There was another fact, for wdiich I remember 

 some booted ignoramuses blaming me at the time, 

 — masters of hounds and huntsmen, perhaps because 

 they wear red coats, but that I did not do, and 

 look like raw meat for daws to peck at, are always 

 blamed for accident, wind, or weather. I might 

 have escaped this sort of blame, as my hunting- 

 coat was of the ^^tawney plush," as worn by thirty 

 of my ancestor's men, Avhen the kennel stood in 

 London, at Charing Cross. 



The incident was this. A fox broke over a field 

 close to my horse, from Knuston Spinney, and went 



