to the
river, followed with frantic speed. Here, at last, was a chase; the
other dogs all hurried to the spot, and the landlord, swinging his
otter-pole, waded out to perform the duties of huntsman with the now
uproarious pack. His action proved infectious--watchmaker, draper,
lawyer, and curate splashed into the shallows to help in keeping the rat
on the move; and fun was fast and furious till the prey, fleeing from a
smart attack by Bob, was captured by a spaniel swimming under a big
oak-root between the curate and the bank.

I hardly think I have enjoyed any sport so well as those Wednesday
evening hunts in the bygone years, when life was unshadowed and each
sportsman of us felt within him the heart of a child. So great was our
amusement that the village urchins instituted a rival Hunt in the brooks
on Saturdays; they notched their sticks for every "kill," and boasted
that they beat us hollow with the number of their trophies.

We had several adventures with otters, but the creatures always, in the
end, eluded us, and we soon were of opinion that smaller fry were
capable of affording better fun. Some seasons afterwards, when our Hunt
was disbanded, the shopkeepers' apprentices continued, with the
youngsters, to work our mongrel hounds; but eventually Joker's death
from the bite of an adder put an end to their pastime, for the bobtail
and the terrier were the only possible leaders of the nondescript pack.

Bob, the terrier, was always the most interesting of our hounds. He
manifested a disposition to use the other dogs to serve his purposes,
just as he used the unsuspecting fishermen if he wished to go hunting in
the woods. When with me after game on the upland farms, he often seemed
to forget entirely that I had taken him to hunt, not for his own
amusement only, but also for mine. Directly he discovered a rabbit
squatting in a clump of grass or brambles, perhaps ten or a dozen yards
from a hedge, he signalled his find by barking so incessantly that my
spaniels hastened pell-mell to the spot. This was just as it should
be--for Bob. Dancing with excitement, he waited between the clump and
the hedge till the spaniels entered and bolted the rabbit; then he tore
madly in close pursuit of the fleeing creature, and my chance of a shot
was spoiled through the possibility of my hitting him instead of his
quarry.

By the riverside, his tricks were precisely similar. Seeing a moorhen
dive, he would call the dogs around him