i8 HOUND AND HORN 



but beyond throwing in a rabbit or a crow occasionally, 

 he did not keep them as he kept his hounds' quarters. 

 Miss Florence was a very dainty 3^oung lady, and as 

 she tip-toed up wind to the courtyard she suddenly 

 came to a dead stop, holding her nose. 



*' Shall I go in and stir them up ? " said Billy. 



" Oh no, please don't ; I don't think I'd care to see 

 them." 



As we walked away she said, *' Mr. Master, I used 

 to think it so clever of fox-hounds to smell a fox and 

 so far off, and wondered how they did it. I don't 

 wonder at all now." 



Clad in linen coats, and taking an ash plant in our 

 hands, we entered the boiling-house, and at a crucial 

 moment. Tom was standing on a wooden stool over 

 a thirty-gallon boiler filled with hot bubbling porridge, 

 and stirring with a wooden weapon like a canoe 

 paddle, as if his life depended on his labour, and 

 he barely noticed us. He then jumped down and 

 raked out the glowing coals from the fire-box of 

 the furnace, and was joined by Jack, who had 

 been mincing up junks of boiled horse-flesh with a 

 chopper. 



*' Keep the puddin' movin' for a bit yet, Jack. The 

 copper is nearly red hot." 



Florence looked on with great interest, and had 

 many questions to ask. 



" Do they eat all that to-day ? Do you give it them 

 hot like that ? Does that last them for a week ? " 



She was instructed that this was the feed for 

 to-morrow and next day, and we watched the men 

 ladle it out with big scoops into wooden coolers, 

 from which the boiling of two days previous had been 



