OBSERVATIONS ON FOX-HUNTING 73 



hounds, you may even put up with it, although 

 very annoying, if they will but refrain from 

 hallooing. There may be some faint hope of 

 improving a field that ride too forward, but a 

 noisy one you can never mend. To prove it, in 

 some measure, I will relate the following fact, — 

 it happened some years ago. I was out cub- 

 hunting, and had found a litter of foxes in some 

 small coverts detached as much as a field or two 

 from each other ; a farmer joined us whom I 

 knew to be free with his tongue, and when the 

 hounds were holding merrily together on one 

 fox, and had nearly beat him, he was sure to 

 halloo them to a fresh one, and swear it was the 

 same we were hunting. After begging him to 

 desist without effect, I rode up and spoke to him 

 in any thing but gentle language ; when he in- 

 stantly got into a violent passion, and declared, 

 nothing on earth should ever make him halloo 

 another fox for me ! I thought, for once, he 

 was silenced ; but before the words were scarcely 

 out of his mouth, a fresh fox crossed the main 

 ride in the covert, and the moment he viewed 

 him, he was at it again, — " Tally-ho ! Tally-ho ! 

 Tally-ho ! — / will be d — d, Sir, if that is not the 

 hunted fox ! " 



In a country that shall be nameless, where 

 every one not only fancied himself a huntsman, 



