A FOX-HUNT IN THE DOWNS 



pursuit of. After the hounds thunder the field, some 

 seventy or eighty in number. They gallop slowly, for 

 the down is not to be lightly overcome. In ten 

 minutes fox, hounds, and hunters have vanished over 

 the smooth brow. 



Twenty minutes later, down another shoulder of the 

 big, rounded hill, comes stealing that same little red- 

 brown figure. The time has been brief enough, but 

 the wonderfully easy, machine-like stride with which the 

 fox faced the down so short a time since has changed, 

 and the gait is now strangely slow and laboured. In 

 truth, fox-hunting upon these smooth hills, where there 

 are no enclosures, no fences, and often little or no 

 shelter for miles, is very hard upon the hunted beast, 

 which is here as much coursed by the hounds as 

 hunted. In twenty short minutes that fox has been 

 practically run to death. He makes for the woodland 

 from which he was driven, but there are foot-people 

 between it and him, and he turns short round and 

 canters wearily over a piece of plough, pointing for a 

 patch of plantation under the hollow of the down. A 

 chorus of yells, halloos, and screams from the foot- 

 people somewhat hastens his progress. He rests but 

 three minutes in the plantation patch, and then steals 

 softly to another, and thence into the big covert again, 

 almost at the spot from which he first broke. 



A blast of the horn floats cheerily across the valley, 

 and now upon the line of the hunted fox, down the 

 shoulder of the hill, come streaming hounds and 

 hunters again. The pack work round to the plough 

 and there check. The huntsman casts them to the 

 right without result, and then, after some few minutes' 

 delay, he is informed of the fox's point, blows his horn, 

 carries his hounds forward, and is upon the line again. 

 They hunt slowly under the hill, the sun has told upon 

 G 81 



