The North Durham. 389 



coimtry is hunted under great difficulties goes without 

 saying; but that the result is a success is all to the 

 credit of the good and determined sportsman who 

 brings it about. If ever a proverb were instanced it 

 is here^ in the contempt begotten of familiarity with 

 the collieries and their iron-roads. The latter are 

 mostly mere ^' wagon ways/^ it is urged ; and " you 

 soon get accustomed to them." Woods, well stocked 

 with foxes, run just below the kennels, almost up to 

 the town of Durham and right among a network of 

 coalworks and trams — and here hounds are taken to 

 amuse themselves whenever a day can be added or 

 spared. Most often a fox found here will but dodge 

 from wood to wood, and round the works and build- 

 ings, till his death. But now and again an old 

 wanderer from the west country has made his way 

 hither in a spirit of inquisitiveness or frolic. Then, 

 shaking the dust off his feet, and the grit off his 

 brush, he clears himself at once from the uncongenial 

 surroundings, and leads them a straight merry dance 

 to his native wilds. The mere wagon ways, it is true, 

 present no very serious obstacle. They can be crossed 

 almost anywhere ; and the lives of hounds are not 

 endangered as they would be amid swiftrunning trains. 

 Once clear of this unhallowed circle, a fine wild high- 

 land district of grass and woodland will soon present 

 itself — the woods extensive, but easy for hounds to 

 drive and horses to gallop through, and the intervals 

 filled in with large grass inclosures of from twenty to 

 fifty acres. Stone walls divide field from field, as in 

 the best of the Tynedale country — to which this side 

 of the North Durham is not altogether dissimilar, 



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