J\Ir. Egerton Warhurton 



far ahead of you. There is only one thing to do. You 

 must sHp quietly back along the bottom, ride round and 

 get on to the top, and so try to put them on to him. You 

 canter away without their finding out, and are presently 

 standing on the top where you last saw the Fox. They 

 can't own the scent. He may have turned up over the top 

 across a greasy wheat-field ; you hold them across it as a 

 last chance, and your luck still serving you, you put him 

 up out of the hedge where he has lain down. How he 

 must hate you ! With that marvellous power of reserve 

 which beaten Foxes seem to have, he blunders across the 

 corner of the field back into the covert ; and there they 

 catch him. 



The reputation of Tar Wood is preserved by Mr. War- 

 burton's description of this remarkable run which took 

 place in 1845, during the mastership of Lord Redesdale, 

 who had for his huntsman the celebrated Jem Hills. Ac- 

 cording to a Mr. Whippy who was out, it was a fifteen-mile 

 point, and twenty miles as hounds ran, the whole thing 

 being accomplished in one hour and forty-two minutes. 

 With great respect we doubt whether this distance could 

 have been covered in the time. In a stiffly enclosed 

 country it certainly could not have been done. Even 

 over the open downs and the stone walls of North 

 Oxfordshire the feat is hardly within the bounds of 

 possibility. But this has nothing to do with Mr. Warburton, 

 who has immortalised the run in a lay that conjures up 

 the wildness and mystery of the Chase, and makes the 



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