SORROWFUL REMINISCENCES OE A HUNTSMAN. 165 



I came near enough for her to hear me. In doing 

 this, a busy whine and brightening-up of the hounds 

 that recognised me as I passed, with a joyful bay or 

 two, loudly repressed by Jack Stephens — as if there 

 was no difference between a hound's flinging his 

 tongue for joy and babbling on a scent — might be 

 heard : it had no effect, though, on the bitch under 

 notice ; she was too sad to heed anything but her 

 forlorn situation. On approaching the poor woe- 

 begone thing, I let her hear the word " tah," pro- 

 longed and spoken as a nurse may do to a child. I 

 never saw such an effect as it had ! She heard it, 

 and started ; looked here, there, and everywhere, as 

 if she disbelieved her senses. I repeated the word, 

 and she ran round me, to assure herself that it was 

 me, and then she jumped on to the pommel of my 

 saddle. Up went her pretty crest and stern for the 

 rest of that day ; and after her greeting to me she ran 

 up to almost every hound in the pack, growling, and 

 with her bristles up, as if telling them that I had 

 arrived. Alas! I soon saw that I had better have 

 broken through my attachment to my hounds at 

 once, than have gone into the Pychley country, to 

 have seen them mismanaged and ill-used without the 

 means of averting it. Once, in going to cover, I 

 overtook Jack playing on his horn, a thing he used 

 to do on every possible occasion. On asking him 

 "what was the matter?" he said, he had heard of 

 Sentinel. Now Sentinel was about as good and 

 steady a hound, when I sold him, as a huntsman ever 

 cheered, though a little shy among strangers. I 

 forget the precise number of seasons I had hunted 

 him, but he was as perfect a foxhound as it was 

 possible to be. Having asked how and when Sen- 



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