1877—78.] WITHOUT HOUNDS AND WITH. 233 



thought, his judgment confirmed, made the most of his hicky 

 start, and galloped the harder. There were jealous ones after 

 him ;■ and over fence after fence they steeplechased to get up, 

 while a stray hound or two chimed in to assist the illusion. 

 At length the leader found himself at fault ; the information 

 which had given him the supposed line of the fox was ex- 

 pended ; and he was compelled to pull up and look round for 

 further indication. Then and then only did it dawn upon the 

 body of pursuers, as they closed round him, that they had 

 perhaps been pursuing a chimera ; and that their five minutes' 

 burst had grown out of no sounder foundation than their own 

 imaginative fears. That tliey did not think any the better 

 of themselves in consequence was easily to be gathered 

 from their blank faces and uneasy laughter— as, after scan- 

 ning first the horizon and then each other, they slank back 

 with shame to Owston Wood. There they found the pack still 

 chasing an unwilling foe round the great covert ; and it was 

 open to them either to plunge again into its deep dark rides or 

 to take their chance outside. Most of them preferred the latter 

 alternative ; and thus, when twenty minutes later Neal issued 

 on the Withcote side, after a fox some minutes ahead, scarcely 

 anyone was left with him save Messrs. H. Lowther, Logan, 

 Tomkinson, Leatham, and Pryor. He blew his horn lustily ; 

 so more came up shortly, and others joined in on the way — for 

 a pleasant hunting run. His fox had plenty of time in hand to 

 dawdle ; so had evidently sauntered on no direct nor hurried 

 path round the valley to the left of Launde Wood. But still 

 hounds hunted it out easily, and quickened their pace, as they 

 turned back by Pryor's Coppice (leaving it a field to the right), 

 and the plot thickened by the arrival of another contingent of 

 pursuers. By the little meadows round Braunston, then to the 

 right and on to the ploughs beyond Brook, there was fiist and 

 pretty hunting. At length they bore leftwards again ; plough 

 succeeded plough ; yet hounds were hot at fault, but pushed 

 onwards unceasingly, till they touched the grass again within 

 three fields of Orton Park Wood. Then thev came to a sudden 



