THE BLOODHOUND IN THE VALE. 145 



was lost, and no trace of her could be found. At 

 last the Master was left almost alone, while he 

 still tried to pick up some clue to her disappear- 

 ance. Going once more to Kington, he found the 

 deer about 4.30, and she then gave him a run 

 of forty minutes before she was taken in an out- 

 house near Wincanton. It was nine o'clock that 

 niofht before Lord Wolverton reached home. 



It was, I think, always either a very good or a 

 very bad day with the bloodhounds. When they 

 ran as they did on the day I have described, you 

 felt that nothing could surpass them in the field ; 

 but there were times when they would not show 

 any sport, and you had nothing to relieve the 

 tedium of a long day of waiting for the run that 

 never came. Of course on all good days we did 

 not get the superlative gallop that marked our 

 meeting at Hayes, but the following instances may 

 be taken as typical of the ordinary sport enjoyed 

 with the pack. 



On March 7, 1874, Lord Wolverton's fixture was 

 at Fifehead Magdalen, as he had settled to look 

 for a hind that had been seen for some days 

 feedinof with the cows on Loder's Farm, at Buck- 

 horn Weston. This hind had given a capital forty 

 minutes from Manston the week before, and had 

 been lost at the end of the day near Rodgrove. 



The hounds and the field — the latter numbering 

 about one hundred — were shut into the yard for 

 twenty minutes, and then the chase started over 

 the open -trenched fields and their stifi" fences in 



K 



