Scarlet, 269 



departed. This was April 28th ; but we heard of the 

 pair for the last time on May morning, when, cold 

 and stormy as it was, the big pack met at the kennel, 

 and drew in the Chace. They found a dog-fox, and 

 killed him in a spinney at the high end of Stub- 

 hampton ; and as if to make a good end, they broke 

 him up, brush and all, and thus Eastbury was deprived 

 of his last trophy. 



We had still one more visit to pay to a Morning's 

 Dorsetshire, and on the morning of the ^^^^• 

 sale we left the train, about 2 A.M., at Wimborne 

 Minster. 



" Low on the sand, and loud on the stone, 

 The last wheel echoed away," 



as the Blandford mail-bags were hurried off through 

 the mist ; and after lingering a little near the church 

 porch till the clock struck three, and then making a 

 wild shot in the darkness at one of the three cross 

 roads, we pointed, as we hoped, from previous hunting 

 map studies, for the Eastbury kennels. We felt no 

 remorse for the beds we left behind us, as it would 

 have required more than Spartan self-control at that 

 hour for any Wimborne publican to arise and let us 

 in, and they were never put to the test. A walk on 

 an early summer morning, just as the bridal chuckle 

 of the blackbirds begins to open in every spinney, 

 and the weasels are never done crossing the road and 

 keeping you in stone practice, is peculiarly exhilarat- 

 ing. However, nature had no more charms after half- 

 past four ; and having once tried the same thing near 

 Godalming, as a boy, for the sake of cub-hunting with 

 Colonel Wyndham's hounds, we can publicly assure 

 the owner of a hay-field abutting on the fifth mile- 

 stone out of Blandford that he was the unconscious 

 donor of a most charming slumber. The sound of a 

 peal of church-bells came floating up the river, and 

 awoke us at last ; and shaking off sleep and the hay 

 seeds, we strode gaily on our way. 



