120 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



E. Chaplin, Cecil Chaplin, Charlton, Martin, 0. Paget, Pen- 

 nington, Pryor, Story, Whitworth, Black, Brewster, Marshall, 

 Sirapkin, Smith, &c., with many more from over the border. 



Owthorpe Borders has lately been a common and frequent 

 playground for the men of both counties. Now again there 

 w r as a fox ready to hand. Mr. Coupland set things in motion 

 without regard to the carpet of snow that might well have 

 frightened him to delay ; and the usual local merry-go-round 

 ensued. With a scent almost inappreciable, Firr and his pack 

 worked away; while the field hovered quietly on the hill- tops, 

 and awaited the turn of events. The turn did not come at the 

 Curate; for the only inmate of the gorse was a heavy vixen. 

 Then upon Eliars Gorse with its recent histories and achieve- 

 ments fresh in memory hung the fate and merit of the day. 

 Hounds were this time thrown into the little covert on its 

 brookside or north-eastern edge ; and so Reynard was cut off 

 altogether from his former course toward the Vale of Belvoir. 

 An even sixpence they don't find him : a guinea to a sixpence 

 they dust him if they do. Hounds already three parts through 

 the sprouting gorse and low-levelled thorn never a sound 

 and the odds on the former point rapidly, dismally, rising. For, 

 Eliars Gorse a blank, where are they to draw, with a 

 reasonable chance of finding ? But hold, what has become of 

 the whip at the top corner ? See, his upheld cap is glancing 

 above the fence, as he dashes across the upper end of the 

 covert ! Now for it ! ! The snowstorms have travelled on, the 

 evening sky is clear, and the northerly breeze is cool but quiet. 

 Hounds are out of covert almost before their fox is over the 

 little meadow above, while in feverish eagerness men rush 

 round to be with them. It is the old, old story the familiar 

 exciting scene a dash for a start, a loose-off of pent-up eager- 

 ness, a draught of excitement that we have drunk so often, and 

 that we hope to quaff many and many a time again. On this 

 occasion the rush is not that of numbers as of a crowd com- 

 peting for freedom from a burning theatre (or to be more 

 material, from Barkby Holt through a handgate) but to get 



