A RECORD RUN 



FARMER SANDERS, one of the old school of yeomen, 

 was well known throughout his native county as a fine 

 horseman, a dead shot, and a rattling good fellow; and 

 the six-acre covert lying near the centre of his well-tilled 

 farm invariably proved a sure find for a fox. The 

 worthy yeoman boasted that the wood had not been 

 drawn blank for twenty years; but twenty years is a 

 far-away cry, and we are bound to confess that " we 

 ha'e our doots." Anyhow, on the day preceding the 

 hunt we are about to tell of, Sanders sent his bailiff* 

 Tom Thorogood, down to the wood to ascertain if the 

 artificial earth therein harboured a fox ; and to the dis- 

 appointment and disgust of the farmer, Thorogood 

 returned with the report that the earth had not been 

 used for at least a week. But as this story will 

 presently show, Sanders determined that the hounds 

 he loved so well should, by fair means or foul, obtain 

 a run next day. We happened at the time to be staying 

 with an old friend who resided within a short distance 

 of Sanders' homestead, and upon the morning appointed 

 for the meet at the cross roads, our host and ourselves 

 had taken our guns out before daybreak for the morning 

 flight of the duck as they passed from their nightly feeding 

 grounds inland to the neighbouring estuary. We were 



returning home with a solitary mallard, when we met 

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