118 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



different places, the fox had passed the same foot of ground. 

 When we had left the difficulties behind, 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 trying the village of Bozeat, and so getting 

 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 they put 

 their fox out of the " haha," and killed him. It was a fine run, 

 and a satisfactory thing altogether. 



George Carter, to whom I have before referred, came to me 

 from a slow state of things which then existed in the hunting 

 establishment of the Duke of Grafton : a slack huntsman and 

 slack hounds, the hounds bred without much judgment, and 

 faults in respective natures overlooked, till breeding in and in 

 had confirmed them as a part of the hound^s capacity. I have 

 seen the Duke of Grafton's hounds, old and long established as 

 they were, tie on the scent, and hang to hares, and that, too, 

 with the line of a fox before them. There are peculiar days in 

 March when I have seen the steadiest hound speak when crossing 

 the line of a hare, although he would not have run her at a 

 view ; and at times it is difficult for a hound, in some states of 

 the atmosphere, to distinguish one scent from another. I give 

 an instance of this, known to George Carter as well as myself. 

 My famous hound, Harrogate, one of the best and steadiest and 

 most sensible hounds that ever existed, was heard by us, in a 

 wood called Lousacre, to speak, and to double his tongue. No 

 other hound spoke ; and the tongue approached towards Carter, 

 when down a harems run came a cock-pheasant : the pheasant 

 saw Carter, and rose ; Harrogate came after him, and, when he 

 came to the spot where the pheasant had risen, threw up, and 



