172 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



anxious to avoid mischief as the master or hmitsman 

 can be; if it were hmiting upon a cold scent they would 

 be more manageable — allowance must be made for the 

 intoxication of the burst. The hounds are flying up a 

 hedge green, half a mile in length ; horses are again 

 extended; when, lo ! there is again a pause, not a check, 

 it does not amount to that, nor does it last as long as 

 it takes to mention the circumstance ; but on that stile 

 over which they have dashed, with half a dozen horses 

 almost on their backs, a boy was seated when the fox 

 approached it ; he, leaving the green, as soon as he saw 

 the boy, instead of keeping straight on by the stile, 

 jumped over to the right, still holding on a parallel 

 course to that which he was steering. Hounds were 

 pressed upon by horses, they had hardly room to turn, 

 they have been ridden on beyond the line, but they are 

 still scarcely twenty yards to the left of it; and see, 

 some couple and a half of tail hounds, which have never 

 been off it, are carrying it on merrily, obliquely to the 

 right. No whip is required to put them right; they 

 wheel, like pigeons, to the cry ; there is a general pro- 

 test, on the part of the riders, against the folly just 

 committed; even those who consider hounds as bores, 

 always in the way, allow them to get a little farther 

 out of it ; they are once more fixed to the business be- 

 fore them— they run the line of these as though they 



