HUMOURS OF HUNTING-FIELD 169 



viewed, and instantly, as if by naagic, they and the fox 

 vanished from sight. It seemed to the foremost riders — 

 Mr Charles Trelawney, Mr Phillips, Mr Harris, Mr Coryton, 

 and Mr Tom Hext (who was the first to view him) — that 

 the earth had swallowed them up. And such was the 

 case. The shaft of an old mine lay open, and they had 

 fallen into it. 



The fox, indeed, with the activity of a wild beast, had 

 clambered on to a broken beam ; but three of the leading 

 hounds were swimming about in the dark water at the 

 bottom of the mine, some seven fathoms deep ; while the 

 rest of the pack had stopped short of the abyss. 



" Gone to ground with a vengeance ! " exclaimed Phillips, 

 with bitter emphasis, dreading the loss of his hounds. 



In a few minutes some miners appeared on the scene, 

 but not a man of them dared go down. Not so, however. 

 Jack Russell, who, with a knotted rope in one hand and 

 his hunting-whip in the other, lowered himself to the 

 beam on which the fox was crouching. Then running 

 the thong through the keeper of his whip and fixing the 

 noose round the animal's neck, he shouted to those above 

 to haul him up. 



" Save him, Phillips ; he deserves his life," said Russell, 

 when he and the fox had safely arrived above ground ; but 

 Phillips firmly said " No," and tossed him to the hounds. 



Then, to save the three brave brutes now struggling in 

 the pit, Russell again prepared to descend ; but Colonel 

 (afterwards Sir Walter) Gilbert persuaded a miner, by 

 the bribe of a capful of silver, to go down with a rope 

 round his waist to bring the hounds, one by one, safely 

 " to bank." 



Russell was once having a day with Sir Walter Carew's 

 hounds, when, as they were running their fox sharply near 

 Romansleigh village, he saw the fox catch up a large 

 yellow cat in his mouth and carry him on as far as he 

 could view him. The fox was killed, but what became of 

 the poor cat I am unable to say. 



