1S79— so.] MARCH SUN AND SCENT. 325 



groiuid beyond your fence, till the grunt of battered joints and 

 the groan of a vigour painfully and suddenly checked echoed 

 awfully beneath you. At the moment you almost realised the 

 mischief done. You knew it better still the next morning, 

 when the old weak spot had proclaimed itself beyond mistake, 

 and " Harkaway must be throwed up for the summer" was the 

 morning report of the man of the stable. The grass, where 

 exposed to March influence, resounded like a drumhead to the 

 stroke of the hoof. Old horses cracked up in landing upon it. 

 or hurt themselves at their fences for very fear of jumping, 

 while 3'oung horses met with a shock that might take them 

 months to forget. Yet when hounds are in cry it is hard to 

 turn aside from a little place that at ordinary times Avould be 

 seized upon as just our chance — and, as sure as we gallop a 

 hundred yards to the right for a gate, so certainly will the}^ 

 sheer off two hundred to the left, and put us at once out of 

 distance. 



On Monday, March 29th, this state of things was in fullest 

 force. The Quorn ran hotly. It was dangerous to jump, and 

 distressing to gallop ; but if you did not do both to some 

 extent, you had no chance of seeing the merry hour's pursuit, 

 which, if it did not actually end in blood, brought a fox to 

 .death's very door at the mouth of his own earth. It Avas 

 positively distressing to see him roll through the fence border- 

 ing his refuge — and to none did the painful sight come more 

 deeply home than to him who had hoped to avert so sad a 

 finale. " Poor thing, I'm sure he'll die in the earth," was 

 uttered with a pathos and feeling that none but a brokenhearted 

 huntsman could have thrown into it. That fox deserved a 

 more glorious end ; they had hunted him from Mr. Cradock's 

 never-failing Spinney at Six Hills over every difliculty of plough 

 that he could pick out for them ; they had pursued him stoutly 

 over the well-honoured (and, liappil}', well-gated) Hoby Ijord- 

 ship ; coursed him round tlie fiirmyards and cottage gardens of 

 Ilagdale till he slipped them for a moment behind the village, 

 and with a last struggle staggered to Slioby Scoles — and the open 

 earth. It was a hard and well-worked chase, honestly meriting the 



