4° The Old Surrey Fox Hounds 



skitters, fell in with us, but our number was soon reduced 

 to the former five — Weston, Tom Hills, Captain Francis 

 Head (afterwards Sir Francis Head), young Mortimer (the 

 late Master), and Henry Bethune. We then cut away for 

 Barrow Green, now feeling very much distressed, horses 

 roaring and sobbing like people at an Irish funeral. We 

 found reynard bustled out of all local knowledge ; he 

 deserted the open for the enclosures. Down the hill we 

 went, blundering, slipping, stumbling, and sliding till 

 we reached the fallow below. Here my horse choked 

 and sat down like a rabbit. I began to think of the 

 knackers. Weston, with only Tom Hills and two gentle- 

 men near him, going with the greatest possible distress to 

 the Barrow Green coverts. Here, luckily for me, they 

 came to a check for five minutes, which enabled me to 

 trot up to them. They again hit it off finely in a hedge, 

 and bent their course to Oxted, to which place I i rode 

 cunning,' which recovered my horse. The fox lay down 

 in a hedge near the village a few minutes before the 

 hounds arrived, to the amusement of the country people, 

 but slipped off with French leave. We had here a check 

 of five minutes or so, and were reinforced by Mr. Dyer, 

 Mr. Mortimer, senior, Charles Mortimer, and six or seven 

 more, their faces as red as their jackets. A halloa at a 

 distance made us all alive again ; we then fenced away to 

 Limpsfield Common, thence to Westerham, and killed in 

 the Rev. Mr. Morton's garden, to his discomfiture, and 

 the destruction of early peas, flower-beds, etc. We 

 presented Mrs. Morton with the brush, which somewhat 



