196 MANAGEMENT OF HOUNDS. 



deuce can that be ? I can see every inch of ground where 

 they are standing ; but no fox can be there." " Tliere 

 he is, then, I will swear ; or my hounds ought to be 

 hanged, every one of them." Upon looking under an 

 old ash stoul, I espied the fox, curled up, literally in the 

 midst of the hounds. " There he is, by Jupiter, Bob, 

 not ten yards from your horse's head." In another 

 minute he jumped up among the hounds, and of course 

 was finished. '* That's all right," said Bob, " let them 

 have him at once, and we will go and look for another 

 fox before the spoonies come up. Egad ! how they will 

 stare when I show them the brush." 



We had come over some very stiff enclosures, having 

 to cross a nasty brook twice, with hollow banks ; and 

 many of the spoonies, as Bob called the rear rank, had 

 been treated to a cold bath ; but one, and a good sports- 

 man to boot, who sat rather loose in his saddle, was shot 

 clean over to the other side, by his horse stopping short 

 as he came to the bank ; and this was not the worst 

 part of his flying leap, for a youngster who was out on a 

 pony, caught his horse, jumped upon his back, and left 

 him the pony to come on with as well as he could. 



Having eaten our fox, we left the place to try for 

 another, and met the field scrambling in, in various 

 plights. A friend of Bob's met us, covered with sand 

 from his head to his knees. " Hulloa !" said Bob,'^^Svhere 

 the dickens have you been, Coxe ? One would think 

 you had been rabbiting." " Why," he said, ** I have 

 only had a bit of a noser into a sand bank. Not liking 

 the look of the brook, I turned short away from the 

 meadows, and, like a fool, went at a five-barred gate, up 

 hill, with a blown horse, into a sandy field. A pip was 



