SAGACITY A^D STEADINESS OF A HOUND. 131 



Towards the end of a season in Yardley Chase, 

 wliich was a neutral woodland bet\Yeen the Duke of 

 Grafton and myself, and chiefly filled at the close of the 

 season with foxes driven there from the countries of 

 either pack, it was quite necessary to have as many 

 eyes that could be trusted for a fox, as possible. 

 Boulton, Ready, Whitworth, Brown, and Dick Perkins, 

 and others, were always put on this duty ; and Long- 

 land, the farmer who lived at Cowper's Oak, always 

 had his eyes open in that likely vicinity. Yardley 

 Chase was the best scentino^ o-round of all, and the 

 most beautiful woodland in which to see hounds 

 work, that could be. The close of the season was the 

 period when this chase came into the greatest requi- 

 sition, and it never failed me in sport. At a meet 

 near Cowper's Oak, a curious circumstance happened. 

 The wind suitino* instead of oroiuo- to the Oak as 

 I had fixed, 1 stopped under the hedge of the first 

 wood near it; I could do so without my hounds 

 breaking away ; and as Mr. Magniac and one or 

 two more had not arrived, I waited their appear- 

 ance. While so Availing, a black-pied hound, called 

 Sweeper, whom I had entered a puppy from the 

 first year of my taking the Oakley country, winded 

 high in the air, and after a little hesitation stood up 

 on his hinder les-s, and fluno; his tono-ue. I watched 

 him ; he doubled his tongue and looked wistfully at 

 me, and seeino- Mr. Ma^'niac arrivinn;, I said to those 

 standing by me, " Sweeper winds a fox." A turn 

 of my horse's head, and the words " over good lads," 

 sent every hound into the cover, and within twenty 

 yarSs of Avhere I had been standing, off they went 

 in full cry, for a fox it was to Sweeper. Kow this 

 is a curious anecdote, and it shows to what handiness 



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