O'GRADY'S FOX 81 



it's the grand bit iv blood an' bone ye are, me darlin', 

 and it's none iv their new-fangled hunters can touch ye 



yet." 



Just before reaching Peter's homestead, hounds 

 came to an abrupt check, and for a few minutes appeared 

 utterly at fault. By making a wide cast forward, how- 

 ever, the huntsman soon had the pack on the hne again, 

 but strangely enough the hitherto " straight-necked " 

 fox had doubled like a hare, and the breast-high scent 

 became very patchy and uncertain. 



" Begorra, it's the grand cast ould Terry has made, 

 an' I couldn't have done it much betther meself wid the 

 baigles," chuckled 0' Grady, as the hounds once more hit 

 off the scent, " but bad luck to the little red divil before 

 them for ladin' us over the stiffest leps in all the 

 counthry," he continued, as old Amazon, after feathering 

 round a thick hedgerow for a few moments, led the pack 

 towards a hilly stretch of stiffly fenced ploughs and 

 pastures. A happy thought suddenly struck him, 

 however, as he eyed the ponderous form of an 18 -stone 

 yeoman neighbour, who, mounted on a huge, upstanding, 

 half-bred cart mare, went lurching along a few lengths 

 ahead of him like a Dutch galleon in a heavy sea. 



" Sure, an' I'll stick as tight to ould ton-an'-a-half an' 

 liis ploutherin' elephant as a tick till a rabbit, for he 

 makes a gap through ivery fence that ye could dhrive 

 a coach-an'-four through." 



Hounds were now running much slower than before, 

 and keeping close in the wake of his heavy pilot, Denis 



