THE BLACKMORE VALE HOUNDS. 231 



him peeping out and disappearing again if he saw 

 he was being waited for. Again and again he 

 would do this, until at last when the coast was 

 clear he would jump out and go on with the pack 

 as if nothing had happened. Raleigh was very- 

 fond of looking into every cottage garden, but he 

 was not such an inveterate cat-hunter as Rama, 

 who would dash into and through every garden 

 before she could be stopped, and woe betide the 

 cat who was not quick enough to save herself in 

 the nearest apple-tree. 



Raleigh and Comrade always welcomed the 

 Master with a peculiar short sharp bark when 

 he joined hounds at the meet. On the way home 

 Comrade used to run close to his near stirrup, 

 while Armiger, by the South Devon Armourer, 

 another favourite bred by Mr Guest, stuck to his 

 horse's off- heel. It was a strange thing that 

 neither of these hounds ever varied in the manner 

 of their return. 



A remarkable instance of the homing instinct 

 was displayed by a hound named Rakish, with 

 whose wonderful feet and legs Mr Guest was 

 so much struck that he bought her. She came 

 from the South Dorset kennels, of which hunt 

 Mr Featherstonhaugh Frampton was then the 

 Master. At Moreton station Rakish was put 

 into the guard's van with a collar and chain on, 

 and she travelled twenty miles in a north-eastern 

 direction to Wimborne, and thence twenty-eight 

 miles towards the north-west to Templecombe, 



