424 SYSTEM OF KENNEL AND 



immediate transit, as now, by poachers. Convey- 

 ances were rare and slow, roads bad — parish ditto 

 nearly impassable in certain seasons, or in very bad 

 weather : and, to show how very bad they must have 

 been many years anterior to our entering on our 

 pilgrimage in this wicked world, we may mention 

 the fact of our great-grandmother being dragged to 

 the parish church, only two miles distant, in the 

 family coach by six long-tailed black horses; not 

 only that, but so great was the toil to horses con- 

 sidered, that our venerated great-grandmother took 

 her dinner with the parson, and returned home after 

 evening service. 



In our boyish days foxes did not abound in our 

 coverts, as they were never drawn by foxhounds, and 

 therefore not strictly preserved; but we remember 

 one grey-headed old monster, of the true greyhound 

 breed, which had madn his kennel upon the top of 

 a high ivy-clad wall, overhanging the poultry yard, 

 whence he was wont to look down with lonsring eyes 

 upon the feathered tribe below ; but the dairymaid, 

 who had charge of them, used to threaten him with 

 her mop. " Ah ! you old villain,^^ she was wont to 

 say; "you may peer out of your hiding-place, and 

 welcome; but come down, if you dare, before night- 

 fall, when my pets are shut up, and then you shall 

 have your supper, as usual ;^* and, strange to relate, 

 this old fox never did run counter to the dairymaid's 

 orders, who always put his supper for him, consisting 

 of oftal, heads and necks of chickens, entrails of 

 game, and other odds and ends, outside the back 

 door, which the old gentleman regularly dispatched. 



