106 REmNISCENCES OF A HUNTSJIAN. 



ride, and from that gate we could never hit him again. 

 I drew every quarter of the woods near, but could 

 never more touch on that cub ; and, as the shepherd 

 admitted to a man some few days afterwards, that the 

 cub had hung in the bars of the gate till his dog got 

 up to him, I have ever suspected that the shepherd 

 knew more of the end of that fox than I did. Not 

 wishing to jade my hounds, I returned home. 



Soon after this, I had been running old foxes and cubs 

 in the Odell and Harrold woods, with a very indiife- 

 rent scent all the morning, not having yet had blood; 

 and the hounds were at a check in a small cover of Mr. 

 Orlebar's, called " Little Goreong." I was sitting by 

 the cover-side, speaking to the hounds, when I thought 

 I saw something rise over a headland in a distant field, 

 mobbed by the rooks. I looked stedfastly, and, going 

 heavily across ridge and furrow, I saw a fox coming 

 towards me over the open ; and, as he came nearer, I 

 distinguished an old fox, a good deal used up. He 

 was evidently coming home again, from a ring he had 

 given himself over the open, under a delusion that 

 the hounds that had run him in the first of the morn- 

 ing in cover were still after him. Stock still I sat 

 like a statue ; and luckily no other person was on 

 that side the cover, and not a hound in cover spoke. 

 On the fox came, the rooks leaving him as they saw 

 me, till he was well landed in the grass-field where I 

 stood, and within forty yards of the little cover full 

 of hounds. As soon as he saw me he dashed for the 

 cover, and I gave such a view holloa and touch of the 

 horn as sent hitn in, — taking up all his attention, and 

 bringing the hounds out, or gathering them near, to 

 meet him. One hound met him on the bank, and 

 caught at him ; but he was gone in an instant, with 



