REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 101 



legs to nail up, and cast the body into the woods, and 

 in a very short time the foxes as regularly picked 

 them up. This was proved by the bird being gone, 

 and then by the wings I found with the cubs. There 

 were a pair of wary old buzzards that had, I suspect, 

 lost toes in my traps, for I could not get them to take 

 a bait, but still hoped to effect it by leaving baits 

 about without a trap. I had put a dead squirrel on 

 a little hillock in a field between the Harrold w^oods, 

 and when I returned to look at it the next day, it was 

 gone. " Now for a trap," I thought to myself, as I 

 closely inspected the site where the bait had lain ; 

 but Avithin a foot of the spot w^here I had left the 

 squirrel, there lay a young pheasant only a few days 

 out of the shell, which, by the mark of a pad in a 

 mole-hill, a fox had dropped when it took up the 

 squirrel. I obtained a shot at one of these buzzards 

 with a cartridge of No. 1. shot, at an immense distance ; 

 and as the bird sat on a bare bough with the breast to 

 me, I thought I must have hit her. This was proved 

 a couple of days after, by my finding the wings in the 

 play-ground of some cubs. 



All this time the kennel at Harrold proceeded rapidly. 

 Mr. Berhill, with the touch of a conjuror's wand, the 

 magic supplied by me, soon converted the barn into a 

 feeding-house, the cow-sheds into lodging-houses, and 

 a portion of the farm-yard into a spacious yard for 

 hounds. In addition to this, another large shed made an 

 over-nio-ht kennel for the huntino- hounds, and a lesser 

 one a house for the bitches. The coach-house made 

 a capital three-stall stable, and the cart stables grew 

 into comfortable stalls and boxes, which, in addition 

 to the stable I found there, made the thing complete. 

 A boiling-house, with running w^ater at hand, built a 



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