184 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



latter portion of my life, not had wealth enough to 

 kee23 a hunter, — a mouse is in my mangers now 

 instead of the dear sweet noses of joyous steeds,) 

 and it is the middle of the hunting season, I can 

 form a pretty sure oi^inion of the success they have 

 been having. 



If their coats are perfectly sleek on their backs, 

 that testifies to good bodily condition ; but scratched 

 arms and faces, and whipped tips to the sterns, show 

 me at once if they have had much running at 

 beaten foxes, with whom they have turned short, 

 and in view of whom they have dashed furiously 

 through the tangled blackthorn, gorse, and briar 

 to get at him. Scarred cheeks and faces, not only 

 from the bites of foxes, but from accidental snatches 

 from the jaws of their fellows, in breaking up 

 the fox, those, and such marks as those, show me 

 what the pack has had to do. These outward and 

 visible marks prove hard work. Without hard 

 work there cannot be much sjDort, for foxes are apt 

 to die in difficult jolaces when not run into in the 

 open, and the hounds cannot get blood unless they 

 know what blood is. Hounds continuously out of 

 blood are very difficult to make kill their fox ; but 

 hounds constantly having their triumph by killing 



