394 HUNTING. 



take the hounds away ;' and, at one of his usual 

 rates^ ev^eiy hound stopped, and the pack were 

 taken to the hedge side, when Mr. Meynell called 

 out three steady hounds, and threw them into the 

 cover. The fox was so lotli to break, that the 

 three hounds kept hunting him for ten minutes, in 

 the hearing of all the pack, who lay perfectly quiet 

 at Raven's horse's feet, till the fox went away over 

 the finest part of the country ; and the moment 

 Mr. ^leynell gave his most energetic, thrilling 

 holloo (Mr. Hawkes speaks of the power of Mr. 

 MeynelFs cheering holloa, which, he says, ' thrilled 

 through the heart and nerve of every hearer,') 

 every hound flew to him ; the burst was the finest 

 that any sportsman ever beheld, and after an hour 

 and ten minutes they killed their fox." This is 

 doubtless an astonishing instance of command of 

 hounds with a scent before them, particularly so to 

 those persons w^ho are aware of the generally un- 

 controllable power of the impulse given to them by 

 nature at that particular time ; and were it not for 

 the high reputation of the pack alluded to, we 

 should, as we cannot doubt the fact, be inclined to 

 say, it savoured a little of slackness, or, at all 

 events, of a too severe discipline, bordering upon 

 the annihilation of the distinguishing natural pro- 

 perties of the fox-hound, namely, high mettle and 

 dash. 



" Mr. Meynell," adds Mr. Hawkes, " was not 

 fond of casting hounds ; when once they were laid 

 upon the line of scent, he left it to them ; he only 

 encouraged them to take pains, and kept aloof, so 



