FOX AND HOUND 



like a bird — tops that hedge that would turn any 

 hunter that ever stabled in Melton Mowbray — and 

 then, at full speed northward, moves as upon a 

 pivot within his own length, and close upon his 

 haunches, without losing a foot, off within a point 

 of due South. A kennel ! He never was and never 

 will be in a kennel all his free joyful days. He has 

 walked and run — and leaped and swam about — 

 at his own will, ever since he was nine days old 

 — and he would have done so sooner had he had 

 any eyes. None of your stinking cracklets for 

 him — he takes his meals with the family, sitting 

 at the right hand of the Master's eldest son. He 

 sleeps in any bed of the house he chooses, and, 

 though no Methodist, he goes every third Sunday 

 to church. That is the education of a Scottish 

 greyhound — and the consequence is, that you may 

 pardonably mistake him for a deer dog from 

 Badenoch or Lochaber, and no doubt in the world 

 that he would rejoice in a glimpse of the antlers 

 on the weather gleam, 



** Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode, 

 To his hills that encircle the sea." 



This may be called roughing it — slovenly — course 

 — rude — artless — unscientific. But we say no— it is 

 your only coursing. . . . 



*But independently of spit, pot, and pan, what 

 delight in even daundering about the home farm 



50 



