NEVEit BEFORE WRITTEN. 19 



and having come to no check, we never could catch 

 them. From the place where they killed their 

 fox, our hounds had then to travel twenty-eight 

 miles more before reaching their kennel." 



I have not related this as the best or longest 

 chase we ever had, or anything like it, but it was 

 the very first my eye rested upon when looking 

 over my hunting MS., and being tolerably good, it 

 proved at the same time what our pack would do 

 without assistance from huntsman or whipper-in. 



Another short notice of a clipper succeeds thus : 



'' Did not find until we reached Stanmore, a bad- 

 scenting, windy day. Hounds slipped away with 

 their fox down wind, but I just heard them going, 

 and was soon with them. Run our fox over the 

 earths in Large's Covert, then across the enclosures 

 as if making his point for Beckhampton Gorse; 

 being headed near a village, he turned away for 

 the downs, wdth his head in the direction of 

 Auburn Chase. Tacked again down wind ; hunted 

 up to him in a turnip-field, where he jumped up 

 in view — heads up and sterns down, raced him up 

 a steep hill (which stopped the horses), over the 

 open again, and he never broke view until run 

 into beyond Barbury Castle— -Jack, the under- 

 whip, first up, on his thorough-bred Irish mare." 



In juxtaposition with these, I will place three 



c 2 



