1876—77.] FROM STAPLP^FORD. 177 



ji (luurter of an hour after being disturbed. So " baste to the 

 trysting tree," and feel thankful that there is a sportsman in 

 authority -who is not likely to let any "huntsman's tricks" be 

 played on poor reynard. Not three counties away from here, I 

 liave heard it told, a good fox lay in a hollow tree, his yellow eyes 

 gleaming in the far darkness, as the gentleman of the whipcord 

 peered in, hayfork in liand, to dislodge him. " Give him a 

 fair chance ! " quoth the man of the horn, the rays of the sun 

 as he looked upward causing a slight spasm of the left eye, the 

 while he absently whistled his hounds to him round the foot of 

 tlie tree. Whereupon Whipcord plunged his fork into the 

 aperture, as if harpooning a porpoise ; reynard dashed out flop 

 against the only hound on that side of the tree, rolled head 

 over heels, picked himself up again, and reached the nearest 

 fence in safety, " You've missed him, you angel ! " the hunts- 

 man shouted, but in a whisper. " Angelled if I did ! " replied 

 AVhipcord in the same tone. And the latter was right ; for 

 though poor pug beat them in fifty minutes that day, he suc- 

 cumbed in five a week after, with the tynes of the fork deep 

 visible in his back. 



But the Cottesmore don't do such things. Their fox to-day 

 had twenty yards to help him down the first hedgerow, his 

 meagre portion of law diminishing to a scant fathom as he 

 bundled over the fallow next to it. Thence he got on to the 

 grass, and thej' raced him furiously to Little Dalby. Custance 

 and Mr. Powell flew the ugly gulf that tried to stop them half 

 a mile beyond, the latter being pulled back again by a grasping 

 blackthorn, that wanted a six-foot spring to clear it. Hounds 

 then sped on b}' Burdett's Covert, and stopped with a steaming 

 few at a drain under Great Dalby. This merry quarter of an 

 hour- constituted the second item of the day. 



The third, of somewhat like character, emanated from the 

 Punchbowl, and consisted of ten bright minutes at top speed 

 round Dalby Hill to Gartree — all galloping and jumping that 

 was confined to less than half a dozen, who dipped headlong 

 down with hounds. A dclaj', with another fox or two afoot, 



