74 FOX-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



a scenting morning was it. This fox proved a 

 right gallant one, and worthy of the famous pack 

 at his brush. The coverts at Embley are exten- 

 sive, and the grounds around corresponding, so 

 the fox had plenty of tactics for trial before a 

 permanent vacation of his domains. The scent 

 was so hot, however, and he was raced so hard 

 and persistently up and down his happy hunting- 

 grounds, that he made occasional dashes out by 

 way of feinting with his foes. First of all he made 

 out on the side towards Romsey, and, finding 

 that no go, he tried another similar venture 

 towards Wellow. Home quarters, however, had 

 now^ become much too warm for comfort, and 

 Charley discovered that Embley was no longer 

 for him a peaceful abiding place. His next bolt 

 was across the lane and over the fields towards 

 Pauncefote Farm. Thence he turned to the 

 left down through the covert over the Salisbury 

 Road to Greenhill, and down into the meadows 

 as if steeplechasing to the Old Abbey Church at 

 Romsey. Here a mob of fellows, who behaved 

 as though they had never seen a real fox before 

 in their lives, and who, as Mr. Carter remarks in 

 a provinicial paper, ' must have fancied it was 

 some wild foreign animal just escaped from 

 Bostock and Wombwell's menagerie,' by their 

 shouting and yelling turned him away again to 

 the left. The point of the fox was evidently 

 Romsey Abbey, but the hullabaloo caused another 

 diversion, and the hounds now raced him fast 

 and furiously the whole way up the meadows 



