46 A HUNTING STABLE. 



are run into by the pack, in the middle of some wide 

 grass field, game to the last ; and render up their 

 lives to the triumphant chorus of who-whoop !" add to 

 this a scent so burning, that the hounds rarely stoop 

 to pick it from the tainted herbage ; but drinking it 

 with dilated nostrils from the free atmosphere on every 

 breath of which it steams aloft, where pug has passed 

 by, sweep along, heads up and sterns down, all to- 

 gether, so that a table cloth shall cover them, fre- 

 quently running twelve miles in the hour ; no slight 

 pace to be maintained by horses, with twelve or four- 

 teen stone weight upon their backs, often through 

 ground so heavy as to hold them fetlock-deep, some- 

 times hough-deep, in tenacious clay, and this coupled 

 to the extra exertion of clearing not less than thirty 

 fences, such as I have described, to every mile of 

 country. 



In the latter, wide woodlands to be traversed, full 

 of dense brakes and swamps impassable for horses, to 

 which the hunted fox clings for the dear life, running 

 short rings, doubling and dogging before the heavy, 

 deep-flewed, dew-lapped, black and tan, or blue-mot- 

 tled dogs of the old Southern strain which form the 

 principal material of the Virginian packs ; and never 

 facing the open, unless where a field or two intervenes, 

 like a narrow channel parting two continents of wood- 

 land ; few heavy leaps to be taken, save now and then 

 a snake-rail fence in the open — and a deuced nasty 

 jump it is, too, were they more frequent — and once 

 and again a fallen tree, a drain, or a rivulet in the 

 woodland, the whole not amounting to a dozen fences 

 in a run, and these trivial as compared to English 

 bull-finches, or stake-and-bound raspers ; the pace 

 nothing to distress even an ordinary hack in ordinary 

 condition ; to conclude, no riding to the hounds, for 

 to ride up to hounds, or even oicar to hounds, in such 

 country were impossible, and to gallop along the 



