MR WILLIAM KENNEDY, 1847-1854 



got off Sweetpea and got on my fresh horse MerHn, 

 a thoroughbred horse by Birdcatcher out of the 

 Slipper. A fox there broke at the top of the cover, 

 and as I was some time getting the hounds out, 

 we were unable to run him very fast to Downshire. 

 I there took the hounds in hand, carried them 

 round the covert, and at once went away as hard as 

 we could go close to Punchbowl; into it the fox did 

 not go, but turned up the hill across Cogans, which 

 was then an unenclosed hill without plantations, 

 and across the highroad close to Kilbride; then ran 

 along the valley leaving the ponds at Brittas on our 

 left. There the fox was viewed by the hounds, but 

 on he went and fortunately I got into a road, and 

 was able to keep them in sight. 



" After galloping half a mile, I went through a 

 gate and found my hounds clustered in the ruins of 

 an old cottage at Lynams near Tallaght Hill covert, 

 which our gallant fox was making for; but they had 

 not their fox as yet, and I did not know what had 

 become of him. From the cottage there was a ditch 

 filled with furze. Thinking the fox might have 

 crawled into it, I jumped off my poor tired horse, 

 and quietly got a few hounds to try if he was there. 

 Just as I did so I joyfully heard a grumble, and saw 

 the fox was dead. He had been lying on the top of 

 the wall and tumbled down among them exhausted. 



" From the time I turned up the hill from Punch- 

 bowl no one knew where the hounds had gone to, 

 and my brother Edward was the first person I met 

 on my way home, and to him I gave the fox's head. 



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