88 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



children are warned by tlie miners not to go too near, and, 

 in fact, the cubs are as zealously guarded as they would be 

 elsewhere. A place I have in mind is the Almshouses Whin, 

 near Cornsay, in the North Durham country. This covert 

 is a 6-acre gorse, quite in the open, and separated by a stream 

 and fence from a small colliery village. But cubs are bred 

 there, or are brought there every spring, and though they 

 are always within sound of the village and its yelping curs, 

 they are never disturbed, and hounds find there not only 

 in the cubhunting period but all through the later season. 

 When a man, however, comes along with a stuffed fox set 

 up in a case, and a tale of how it was " made in Germany," 

 or possibly was caught on the distant moors, the miner is often 

 most anxious to possess such an ornament, and the shillings 

 are freely produced. That foxes are at times killed illegiti- 

 mately in the countries I am writing about, and in every other 

 country in the kingdom, is in all probability true; but miners 

 are never the delinquents in the north, nor, as far as I know, 

 in any of the hunting countries which have a mining popula- 

 tion within their borders. 



The day on which the fox was bolted by a squib was a 

 memorable one so far as I am concerned, for hounds were 

 actually running foxes for just on seven hours. It was in the 

 second year of Mr. Priestman's mastership, and I do not 

 remember where the meet was, nor a great deal about the 

 morning, beyond the fact that from eleven o'clock until two 

 we were continuously hunting in the Mere Burn and other 

 Shotley plantations. Then a fox got away and ran to the 

 Sneep, and I think we got among fresh foxes. Anyhow, we 

 had a good deal of woodland hunting, and finished by run- 

 ning to ground and bolting the fox in the manner I have just 

 described. Although it was at the very end of the season, 

 and not dark until nearly seven o'clock, the field, with one or 

 two exceptions, departed after the bolted fox had been broken 

 up; but Mr. Priestman was terribly keen, and went to draw 

 Horsley Hope Gill — the only covert in the neighbourhood 

 which had not been disturbed that day. The Master and his 

 hounds disappeared into the gill, one whipper-in went for- 

 ward, and Mr. Charles Balleny, now in British Columbia, and 

 I, the only ones left, rode up the fields above the covert, and 



