SYSTEMS OF HUNTING 103 



fine horseman, with a capital nerve ; he understood 

 hunting and the run of foxes ; he was very quick, 

 but he was noisy. One day when I was hunting 

 with him stands out as a forcible example of the 

 error of the system for which he is an advocate. 

 In the morning we had a very trying run, from the 

 huntsman's standpoint. Hounds had run hard for 

 ten minutes ; then came a check, and then the fox 

 took a line over bad scenting ploughs, and though 

 there was more of the holloa and horn than I liked, 

 there could be no mistake about the hounds being 

 well handled, or that they came readily enough to 

 the huntsman. Eventually hounds lost their fox, 

 and we found another in a very short time. The 

 huntsman was as quick as lightning in getting 

 away, and in the art of getting a start with his fox 

 he required no instruction. With a holding scent 

 hounds ran on for about an hour and a quarter, 

 and they were getting close to their fox when a 

 plantation of some half a dozen acres loomed in view. 

 Into this plantation the fox went, hounds hard at his 

 brush. Now it so happened that we were in a 

 country where foxes were plentiful, and hounds were 

 no sooner in the plantation than a fox showed himself 

 on one side of it and went away, and was of course 

 well holloaed at by those of the field who saw him. 

 Other two foxes went away with the same result, 

 the huntsman, of course, not seeing any of them. 

 But he began to blow his horn, thinking that one 

 must be his run fox, and the result was that as 

 hounds overshot the line he got their heads up, and 

 they set off for him. Meanwhile the run fox broke 

 at the low end of the covert. The huntsman was 

 quick enough in getting his hounds on to the right 

 line, but the mischief was done, hounds had got 



