184 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



scent, serving for a continuation of the pace which they 

 have gone over the intervening patches of grass and 

 hedge greens ; it would be the height of folly to lift them 

 as often as they come to stooping ; thei'e the whole 

 chase consists in hunting and running by turns, varying 

 according to the luck of the fox's line; but, in the 

 deeper vale, such as that between Bramingham and 

 Woburn, Hexton and Pullox Hill, Wrest Park, or any 

 of the line of country bounding Hertfordshire on the 

 north, there are not the same reasons to account for 

 the sudden loss of a good scent. A huntsman must be 

 more alive to contingencies, and although there, I 

 would far rather inculcate the principle of leaving them 

 alone, than that of meddling with them too much; he 

 must be quicker in resolve, and may venture more in the 

 part which he has himself to play. Hounds may 

 throw up entirely upon fallow, or new-sown land ; they 

 may not run a yard; but when gently lifted over it, 

 they set-to again, without the recurrence of another 

 such mischance, till they are on better terms with their 

 fox ; but if they throw up in the middle of a large grass 

 field, when they have been running breast high, unless 

 some large flock of sheep, or herd of cattle have foiled 

 the ground, it can very rarely happen that the fox is 

 forward; he cannot have vanished into air; if his 

 line is there, and they cannot own it, they cannot run 

 him anywhere ; he is irrecoverably gone ; there is no 



