250 MANAGEMENT OF HOUNDS. 



follow your hounds with about as pleasurable sensations 

 as a boy would entertain upon returning to school late 

 in the holidays, when he anticipates either a flogging or 

 an imposition for being last of his class. 



I remember upon one occasion, particularly, getting 

 upon the line of a fresh fox late in the day, who led us 

 a proper dance across country, then over some downs, 

 and, just as it became dark, into the stifFest vale of our 

 grass country. Stopping the hounds was out of the 

 question ; for some time we could not get near them, and 

 when we did, it was so dark that we could not see them, 

 and their cry was our only guide. The fox appeared, 

 from his mode of running at last, to be quite as much in 

 the dark as ourselves. The last point he had made was 

 for a head of earths, which were closed, and being foiled 

 in this, he tried to foil the hounds by short running in 

 some small enclosures. Jim being mounted on a white 

 horse, took the lead, and I was glad enough to follow 

 him, his horse being fresher than mine. Occasionally, 

 a crashing, groaning sound reached my ears, with a loud 

 " come up" from Jim, as he floundered through a ditch 

 on the other side of a strong bullfinch er, with a caution 

 to me in his wake, " Take care. Sir, there's a nasty place 

 the other side." We scrambled on in this manner for 

 about twenty minutes, when the fox took refuge jn some 

 out-buildings behind a gentleman's house, close to a large 

 market town. Having obtained a lanthorn from the 

 servant, we found the hounds in the House of Comynons, 

 underneath which Mr. Reynolds had ensconced him- 

 self in anything but a bed of roses. Dislodging him 

 from such a place, without breaking up the floor, being 

 out of the question, we " left him alone in his glory," 



