SOME BY-DAYS 123 



half-an-hour*s fishing and groping with hay forks 

 and rakes in the deep pool below was the body 

 fished out, and hounds, which had been taken away, 

 were brought back to eat it. Jack the whip's elation 

 was so marked that Billy sought and obtained an 

 explanation of it. He had laid odds that before 

 the end of the month (February) we should have 

 killed fifteen brace, and this made it, though it was 

 only the nineteenth day of the month. 



This part of the country was well stocked with 

 stout straight-running foxes, so when it was possible 

 to put in an extra day, I was tempted to do it. 



On a day following very closely on the last, a 

 likely-looking beggar, as Tom Telfer described him, 

 found himself in the heather outside Lurgiescleuch, 

 and made for the heights, the hounds soon stream- 

 ing in a long string after him, and very soon run- 

 ning out of sight. The terrier, and one or two 

 tailed-ofif hounds, were our guides by Wauchope 

 Common, Hemlaw, Fanna Rig, Note-o'-the-Gate, to 

 Singden, where, in a blown-down plantation of 

 spruce trees, we found hounds hard at work. We 

 obtained the comforting news that the Liddesdale 

 hounds had been through it that morning, so there 

 could only be our fox in it. Very soon after we 

 viewed him steal away on the backward journey, 

 a five and half mile straight point. But this time 

 he kept more to the south, down the bank of the 

 stream, and by Wauchope House they were pressing 

 him closely. On by the Forking and Hawkshaw 

 March they drove with an enlivening chorus, making 

 the whole valley resound, past Hobkirk between 

 the church and the river, then crossing the latter 



