WARWICK WOODLANDS. 49 



"He always goes up when a fox is sinking-,'' Harry ex- 

 claimed, pointing toward bim with his hunting whip. 



Aye! he has given up his point entirely; he knew he 

 could not face the hill. Look! look at those carrion 

 crows ! how low they stoop over that woody bank. That is 

 his line. Here is the road again. Over it once more 

 mejrily! and now we view him. 



"Whoop I Forra-ard, lads, forra-ardl" 

 He cannot hold five minutes; and see, there comes fat 

 Tom, pounding that mare along the road as if her fore- 

 feet were of hammered iron; he has come up along the 

 turnpike, at an infernal pace, while that turn favored 

 him; but he will only see us kill him, and that, too, at a 

 respectful distance. 



Another brook stretches across our course, hurrying to 

 join the greater stream along the banks of which we have 

 so long been speeding; but this is a little one; there! we 

 have cleared it cleverly. Now! now! the hounds' are 

 viewing him. Poor brute! his day is come. See how he 

 twists and doubles. Ah! now they have him! No! that 

 short turn has saved him, and he gains the fence — he will 

 lie down there ! No ! he stretches gallantly across the next 

 field — gjtme to the last, poor devil! There! 

 " Who-whoop ! Dead ! dead ! who- whoop !" 

 And in another instant Harry had snatched him from 

 the hounds, and holding him aloft displayed him to the 

 rest, as they came up along the road. 



"A pretty burst," he said to me, "a pretty burst, Frank, 

 and a good kill; but they can't stand before the hounds, 

 the foxes here, like our stout islanders; they are not 

 forced to work so hard to gain their living. But now let 

 us get homeward; I want my breakfast, I can tell you, 

 and then a rattle at the quail. I mean to get full forty 

 brace to-day, I promise you." 



"And we," said I. "have marked down fifteen brace al- 

 ready toward it; right in the line of our beat, Tom says." 

 "That's right; well, let us go on." 



And in a short half hour we were all once again assem- 

 bled about Tom's hospitable board, and making such a 

 breakfast, on every sort of eatable that can be crowded on 

 a breakfast table, as sportsmen only have a right to make; 

 nor they, unless they have walked ten, or galloped half as 

 many miles, before it. 



