JACK STEPHENS AND THE BIEDMINDER'S HOLLOA. 171 



and foiled woodland, about which there were fresh 

 foxes. The hounds were tearing at several spouts, 

 while a man was gone for a spade ; and just as I was 

 examining a ditch, to see that there were no other 

 outlets, on peeping into something that looked like 

 a drain under the grass, the fox bolted in my face, 

 and I knocked him down with the hammer of my 

 whip, and cast him kicking among the hounds. 

 Upon my word, I think, that as Mr. Wyndham's 

 hounds learned their abstinence from foxes, in a 

 certain waj^, from him, mine learned to catch them 

 quickly from what they saw me do ; for often and 

 often when I despaired of a kill, they have picked up 

 the fox in a most extraordinary manner. To give an 

 illustration of the wildness and want of thought of 

 Jack Stephens, when he hunted the hounds I sold to 

 Mr. Wilkins, there is no better specimen than the 

 following. We had beaten a fox, and had him for 

 some time among us in some small plantations. Jack 

 and myself were viewing him by turns, and with a 

 crack of our whips heading him to the hounds, 

 who had very little scent to work with, the fox so 

 dead beat that he only saved himself by occasionally 

 lying do-svn in the thick brambles under the trees, 

 whenever they came up to him. At the instant that 

 I was listening for a kill, Jack heard a holloa at 

 least a mile off; " too-too-too-too," went his horn, 

 " hark, holloa !" was the word, and away he flew, 

 calling the hounds, all he could get, after him; 

 " crack, crack, crack," went the whipper-ins' whips, 

 with a " get away ! get away ! " and off went master 

 and man, with the field at their tails, and a lot of 

 hounds, about to be misled, after them. I sat still, 

 thunderstruck that any set of men could have so 



