CHAPTER XVI 



SOME RUNS WITH FOOT-HARRIERS 



A hunting morning — A South Down manor-house — 

 The Hunt breakfast — A hare found — A hot chase — 

 Hard chmbing — BirUng Gap and the sea — Scent 

 fails — A check — Captain, a friend at need — A cast 

 forward — A holloa on — Beaten hare — The death 

 — A marsh meet — The hare-finder — Away over the 

 dykes — A long marsh-run — Towards Hooe and 

 Little Common — We check — Over the Haven — Near 

 the Sluice — Road-hunting — Wild fowl at sea — The 

 grass again — The " Crumbles " — A waste of shingle 

 —The kill 



It may, I think, be not uninteresting if I attempt to 

 depict one or two runs with foot-harriers. It is a 

 duU, misty, November morning. Our meet to-day lies 

 at a quiet old manor-house, lying in the very heart 

 of the South Downs, and, as flints are plentiful and 

 cycling among these hiUs is not of much assistance, 

 we start fairly early and walk the four and a half 

 miles to the try sting-place. Arrived there, we find 

 the hounds already shut up in a stable and the score 

 or so of hunters assembled inside the old house. We 

 enter the ancient hall, a fine old lofty chamber, tim- 

 bered with dark oak, and dating back from the later 

 days of Henry VIII.'s reign. This is the oldest part 

 of the mansion, the south front dating from about 

 1630. But it is aU delightfully ancient, a fine, solid, 

 well-built, ancient manor-house, in which generation 



