The Hunting Year 



in front of hounds on a bad scenting 

 day. 



And this was a bad scenting day; of that 

 there could not be the slightest doubt. There 

 was a wild west wind, soft and apparently blow- 

 ing through rain ; and one could not hear 

 what hounds were doing a hundred yards off if 

 one was up wind. And, oh, the monotony of 

 what they did do during that wearisome after- 

 noon! How many foxes we had on foot I 

 should not even like to guess at. Luckily, we 

 were in a country which was well supplied with 

 foxes, and so things were not so bad as they 

 might have been. But scent was wretched, and 

 hounds, if they got close away on the brush of 

 their fox, might run him decently for three or 

 four fields. Then the progress was in inverse 

 ratio to that of John Gilpin. The gallop became 

 a canter, the canter a trot, the trot a walk. 

 Then a long time was spent in the vain 

 endeavour to recover the line of our hunted fox. 

 History kept repeating itself, as history has a 

 knack of doing under such circumstances ; and, 

 to add to the monotony, we never seemed to 



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