SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 31 



through London and thirty miles beyond. On the 

 second night after her arrival there, she escaped 

 from the kennel, and no tidings of such a hound 

 being heard of or seen in the neighbourhood could 

 be gathered. Her new owner, after fruitless in- 

 quiries and researches, bethought himself, as almost 

 a forlorn hope, of writing to her late master, telling 

 him the day she absconded, when he was greatly 

 surprised to learn that the hound had reached 

 Stapleton on the fifth day after being missed from 

 Essex. Knowing the instinct and sagacity of the 

 canine race, this feat would not have appeared any- 

 thing very wonderful, save for the hound threading 

 her way through the labyrinths of the great metro- 

 polis. She would have taken cognizance of the 

 various inns on the road where the carriage stopped 

 to change horses, and where, most probably, she 

 ahghted with her new master to stretch her legs. The 

 sign of a large red fox, with a goose in his mouth, 

 could not fail to attract her attention. A White 

 Horse might bring to her mind the old grey mare 

 ridden by the huntsman. The Goat and Compasses 

 — etymologically explained by " God encompasseth 

 us " — a phrase and sign in common usage during 

 that arch-liberator or arch-fiend's reign, Cromwell — ■ 

 would strike her as bearing some resemblance to 

 deer which she had seen in a park near home. The 

 Three Magpies, on Hounslow Heath, a very noto- 

 rious posting-house in those times, were likely to 

 have made some impression on her mind from these 

 birds generally assisting hounds with their hoarse 

 notes, when a fox is before them. 



