456 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



of whipper-in and of a visiting huntsman (the most en- 

 thusiastic of all holiday-makers, I have ever noticed, is a 

 huntsman enjoying himself with another pack). Hounds 

 were away on his very stump ; but were bafifled in the 

 first half-mile of the avenue by a collie dog, himself the 

 very facsimile of a fox. How marvellously good was the 

 scent was shown immediately afterwards by the way hounds 

 took it up on a dusty road, and carried it at best pace over 

 wheatfield and driest twitch-land, if I may coin a word 

 to express the goose-to-the-acre ground that hereabouts 

 occasionally takes the place of pasture. Leaving the ap- 

 propriately named Geese Wood to their right, the pack 

 dashed into the narrow chain of the Harringworth Woods, 

 some two miles long, though less than one quarter broad. 

 " Beautiful coverts for getting hold of a fox" I have heard 

 them termed by our white-collared professor. Something 

 occurred in covert to put off the body of the pack, for, as 

 the Master reached the end by hard galloping, he found a 

 single hound going on alone. Blowing his horn with 

 vigour, he hurried on beyond the next wood, Spanhope, or 

 Spanner, thinking there to overtake other hounds in front. 

 But as he gained the farther side, out came the brushless 

 one close to his horse's feet. Half-a-dozen couple appear- 

 ing promptly to the horn, they were laid on at once and 

 went forward vigorously through the Laxton Woods into 

 the great jungles of Wakerley. Hunting right up to their 

 fox, the pack now all well together, they met him as he 

 turned back from a woodcutter, and chased him round 

 and round through the underwood. Every moment it 

 seemed they must snap him, as he scudded hither and 

 thither under bare poles. PYom their very jaws he went 

 below. But from a rabbit-hole hounds soon dragged and 

 demolished him. A sporting run and a proper finish. 



CHAPTER LXXIII 



A WET, WILD GALLOP WITH THE FALLOW BUCK 



When the chase has died out nearly everywhere else, the 

 New Forest rings daily still with note of horn and hound. 



