248 RECORDS OF THE CHASE 



only alternative. To render this intelligible, let us 

 suppose a fox found in a gorse covert, with two or 

 three hundred ardent spirits jealous of distinction. 

 The fox 'breaks away' and the hounds leave the covert 

 in a body; but before they can well settle to the scent 

 they are pressed upon ; however, in a few minutes they 

 get to work, and are scoring along at a merrj^ pace. 

 Many are riding the line, others are skirting, that is 

 riding to a point which they conceive the fox will make 

 for. After running some distance the fox turns, either 

 from being blown or from being headed — perchance to 

 make good his point ; at all events the hounds come to 

 a check; in all probability they have over-run the 

 scent and have been driven still further beyond it by 

 the horsemen; if the huntsman is in his place and at- 

 tentive to what is passing he will detect the contretemps 

 and make his cast accordingly, but it must be a wide 

 and speculative one. 



In the event of a check, provided there are not more 

 than some twenty horsemen, the most judicious plan is 

 to leave the hounds to themselves : if they have room 

 to work they will make their own cast, and if they have 

 over-run the scent, which probably they may have 

 done, they know how far they brought it; they will re- 

 turn to the spot and in all probability recover it ; they 

 have time to feel for it, and their instinct guides them. 

 But if the aforesaid number of horsemen be multiplied 

 by ten, it is quite another affair. A fox will seldom 

 turn back in the face of such a phalanx ; if he does it 

 in an open country he is nearly certain to be viewed ; 

 but he may have been headed back before the field had 

 arrived at the particular spot, and still endeavour to 

 make good his original point ; under such circumstances 

 the scent has been ridden over, for the field is dispersed 

 and it is very likely the flanks both right and left ex- 

 tend a quarter of a mile — often wider — from the line 

 the hounds have been running. There is no alternative 

 in such cases but to make a cast at once beyond where 

 the ground has been foiled by the horses; and, there- 



