THE KNUSTON FOX. 145 



Knuston again, and he broke from the spinnies, across 

 a small grass ground, into one very large, in which 

 was a flock of sheep scattered on their feed. The 

 hounds were coming on his line down the spinny, 

 so I cantered after him across the small field, and 

 stopped, and w^atched him through the sheep. He 

 went for the thickest of the foil, and all the sheep ran 

 after him : however, I knew the spot where he ao-ain 

 got on fresh ground ; and when the hounds checked 

 in the middle of the field, as I guessed they would, 

 I was at no loss for the quickest way in putting 

 them right. The run was just like the former one : 

 every sort of difficulty was put between him and 

 the hounds ; but know^ing something of his line, and 

 the scent being a trifle better, I contrived to have 

 very little delay. As I cast for a cottage garden, an 

 old woman stood there, who cried out, " Here, Sir, 

 the fox is gone over the same corner of the Avail he 

 did last time you were here;'* and sure enough, in a 

 dozen diffierent places, the fox had passed the same 

 foot of ground. When we had left the difficulties be- 

 hind, and had got into the large fields, whence I could 

 see the fish-ponds at Castle Ashby, and the back of the 

 house, the hounds ran hard, and I could see that they 

 were getting near their fox. At one time, I thought 

 he intended trvins; the villao-e of Bozeat, and so o'ettino; 

 up to the Bozeat and Harrold woods ; but though he 

 turned that way, he soon resumed his point ; and 

 the hounds threw up from a racing pace, as if the 

 scent had vanished, at the lodge at the entrance of the 

 park at Castle Ashby. Sitting still, while they made 

 their own cast, I saw my brother Moreton hold up his 

 cap, and point with his whip into the sunk fence. 

 I favoured then the circular cast of the hounds, and 



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