160 THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 



too fast; the body is casting itself, and spreading round 

 the field. The huntsman prudently leaves them to 

 themselves. He well knows what has happened ; but 

 he allows them to make their own cast first forward, 

 till they, of their own accord, turn, when he will 

 incline then quietly back to where they had overran 

 the scent two hundred yards behind. See how old 

 Sprightly and Flourish are working on the line ; they 

 have almost puzzled it out amidst the horses, for it is 

 there he went. One hundred and ninety-nine of the 

 best fellows in England, of course utterly unconsciously, 

 have come streaming on without a thought of pulling 

 up, till they have fully attained their object of catching 

 the hounds. They are charmed at being Vvith them 

 once more ; are talking and laughing, attributing their 

 ever having been further behind, at any moment, to an 

 infernal start, and that confounded, quiet way, in 

 which some persons get them out of covert to en- 

 sure a start for themselves, while they were merely 

 discussing the yeomanry races on the up-wind side, 

 and must have heard if there had been half horn and 

 halloo enough away. Vowing never to leave them an 

 instant again, they kept moving as hounds move, or 

 are moved, and as it is hopeless attempting to pick out 

 a scent amongst the steam of cavalry, to say nothing 

 of their trampling over it, the huntsman lifts them in 

 a semicircular direction towards the point to which the 

 fox was leaning, and towards which the old hounds 



