32 FOX-HUNTING IN NEW ENGLAND 



At last, above the voices of these garrulous vis- 

 itors, your ear discerns the baying of the hounds, 

 faint and far away, swelling, dying, swelling, but 

 surely drawing nearer. Louder rings the "musical 

 confusion of hounds and echo in conjunction," 

 as the dogs break over the hill-top. Now, eyes 

 and ears, look and listen your sharpest. Bring 

 the butt of your gun to your shoulder and be 

 motionless and noiseless as death, for if at two 

 gun-shots off Reynard sees even the movement of 

 a hand or a turn of the head, he will put a tree- 

 trunk between you and him, and vanish altogether 

 and "leave you there lamenting." 



Is that the patter of feet in the dry leaves or 

 did the sleeping air awake enough to stir them? 

 Is that the fox? Pshaw! no only a red squirrel 

 scurrying along a fallen tree. Is that quick, muffled 

 thud the drum of a partridge? No, it never reaches 

 the final roll of his performance. It is only the 

 beating of your own heart. But now you hear the 

 unmistakable nervous rustle of Reynard's foot- 

 steps in the leaves; now bounding with long leaps, 

 now picking his way; now unheard for an instant 

 as he halts to listen. A yellow-red spot grows out 

 of the russet leaves, and that is he, coming straight 

 toward you. A gun-shot and a half away, he stops 

 on a knoll and turns halfway around to listen for 

 the dogs. In awful suspense you wonder if he will 

 come right on or sheer off and baffle you. But a 



