NIMROD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 27 



was soon lost. A second fox was found in a neighbouring whin, 

 Throckley-fell I think was the name of the place, which went gallantly 

 away, and was, we understood, handsomely killed at the end of a fifty 

 minutes hunting-run. Indeed as far as Mr. Surtees and myself could 

 follow them with our eyes — having taken our stand upon rather elevated 

 ground, — they appeared to be proceeding in a business-like manner, 

 although with scarcely a holding, much less a burning, scent ; but over 

 as nice a country as any man could desire to hunt in. Either large 

 grass, or hght stubble, fields — the former chiefly — with by no means 

 difficult fences, constitute the character of it, and on that subject no 

 more need be said ; but I was given to understand, that a great part of 

 the country hunted by Sir Matthew Ridley's hounds wears the same 

 favourable features. 



It would be presumptuous in me to offer a remark on the form, cha- 

 racter, or performances of these hounds, from the short time they were in 

 my presence, and from the mere bird's-eye, consequently indistinct, view 

 I had of them in chase ; and especially so, as with our first fox, when I 

 was able to see them in their work, one of those unlucky, but too fre- 

 quent mishaps occurred, from which, neither fox-hunting nor any thing 

 else is free : namely, an error in judgment on a doubtful point. Neither 

 can I say more respecting their huntsman than I have said, excepting 

 that, with his first fox, he had recourse to an expedient new to me, but 

 which answered extremely well ; and which I wonder is not oftener 

 resorted to than it is, in covers of great extent. When he was sure his 

 fox had broke cover, it was not that, as Scott says, he 



" Gave his bugle-horn a blast 



That through the woodlands sounded far and wide;" 



E 2 



