84 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



and frequently view a fax into the open country when that 

 fox is half a mile or so in front of the pack. If a fox breaks 

 right-handed, as many do, he has the best country in the 

 hunt before him; but if hounds are some distance behind. 

 Master Reynard is very apt to work in a half circle until he 

 reaches the river banks again, and when this happens it is 

 geoierally difficult to force this particular fox into the open a. 

 second time. As the Sneep is approached the banks of the river 

 become very steep, and in some places are dangerous for 

 hounds, and near Crooked Oak farm there is a certain slab 

 of rock, half-way down a wooded precipice, where foxes often 

 lie, and where at times they will remain while hounds are 

 drawing, knowing that they cannot be reached. Their tactics, 

 however, were discovered many years ago, and now a whipper- 

 in goes forward at the right moment, and if there is a. fox on 

 the rock who will not move throws a stone or clod of earth at 

 him. One of the very best hunts I ever saw had its origin with 

 a fox that was said to have come off this ledge of rock. 

 Hounds had been hunting for an hour or two, and foxes were 

 sticking to the river banks with persistency, when there came 

 a halloa near Crooked Oak farmhouse, and Mr. Priestman, 

 who was then hunting hounds, took them to it and they hit 

 it. off in the lane just east of the farm. Then for three-quarters 

 of an hour they ran hard over the best country in the hunt, 

 going eeist^ — if memory serves — as far as Highfield farm on the 

 Whittonstall estate. But all the time they were making a 

 half circle, and fifty minutes after the halloa hounds were back 

 at the river and reduced to slow hunting. This was a grand 

 gallop, done at a ripping pace, but when hounds reached the 

 western end of the chain of Sneep coverts everyone was there, 

 for hounds had described a wide half hoop, and the field had 

 been on the inside all the way. Hounds never lost the line, 

 but after having travelled some eight or nine miles of open 

 country in forty-five minutes, they took twenty minutes 

 between the Badger Wood and Silver Tongue, a distance of 

 about a mile, but strong covert all the way. Near Silver 

 Tongue they left the Derwent on the south side, and on the 

 Durham side of the stream hunted steadily up Horsley Hope 

 Gill, and reached the open again close to the railway, which 

 divides the country from that of the North Durham. Here- 



