NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



clean away from the foot-people, it is the custom to hunt 

 them on horseback, the two whips, as usual, following 

 on foot. 



Our hare has turned, and hounds, swinging swiftly 

 to the left hand, climb a gorse-clad bank, and reach 

 some plough again. By this time the bright sunshine 

 has had its effect ; the snow has well-nigh vanished, 

 and the country is as sticky and as holding as you 

 please. Hard work for the foot-followers, who toil 

 along, carrying with them at every stride no inconsider- 

 able portion of the county. Scent suddenly fails, and 

 across this piece of plough even these low-scenting 

 hounds can make little or nothing of the line. How- 

 ever, there is a holloa forward by yonder rick. I know 

 this is the right line, having seen the hare suddenly 

 turn and bear across the plough in that direction. 

 Now the master holds his pack forward. Suddenly, as 

 they approach the line of the chase, a fresh hare jumps 

 up in front of them, and with a frantic outburst away 

 goes the pack, all running in view. Bad luck this, yet 

 it may be cured. They hunt down the slope and up 

 the hill on the other side, pointing for Friston. At the 

 top there is a check ; the master, aided by his mounted 

 friend, gets them off, and they are brought back. By 

 this time the errant hounds, which ran the other hare, 

 have been retrieved, and we go to work with the com- 

 plete chorus again. 



Hunting testimony is always more than doubtful ; 

 two sets of people have, they say, seen the hunted hare 

 in front of them ; which of them are in the right? The 

 master casts his hounds over the grass right-handed, 

 and brings them round in a wide semicircle. No 

 result ! A lady and a schoolboy vow they have viewed 

 the hunted hare up the plough on the downside 

 yonder, just where a more than usually bright and 



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