to the fox-hound stamp, yet very
honest hunters. In each run the lead was taken by a hound of peculiar
and uncommon marking--black and tan, but the tan so far spreading that
the black was reduced to merely a saddle.

The day was rather too bright, perhaps, for the scent to lie well; but
there was the better opportunity for seeing the hounds work, which they
did most admirably, without any assistance. It is one of the advantages
of a pack like this that no one presumes to interfere and do the
business of either the huntsman or hounds. The first hare was found on
land apparently recently inclosed near Eton; but, after two hours'
perseverance, it was impossible to make anything of the scent over
ploughed land.

We then crossed the railway into some fields, partly in grass, divided
by broad ditches full of water, with plenty of willow stumps on the
banks, and partly arable on higher, sloping ground, divided by fair
growing fences into large square inclosures. Here we soon found a stout
hare that gave us an opportunity of seeing and admiring the qualities of
the pack. After the first short burst there was a quarter of an hour of
slow hunting, when the hounds, left entirely to themselves, did their
work beautifully. At length, as the sun went behind clouds, the scent
improved; the hounds got on good terms with puss, and rattled away at a
pace, and over a line of big fields and undeniable fences, that soon
found out the slows and the nags that dared not face shining water.
Short checks of a few minutes gave puss a short respite; then followed a
full cry, and soon a view. Over a score of big fields the pack raced
within a dozen yards of pussy's scent, without gaining a yard, the
black-tanned leading hound almost coursing his game; but this was too
fast to last, and, just as we were squaring our shoulders and settling
down to take a very uncompromising hedge with evident signs of a broad
ditch of running water on the other side, the hounds threw up their
heads; poor puss had shuffled through the fence into the brook, and sunk
like a stone.

There is something painful about the helpless finish with a hare. A fox
dies snarling and fighting.

FOOTNOTES:

[176-*] This sketch was written in 1857.

CHAPTER XII.

HUNTING TERMS.

Hunting terms are difficult to write, because they are often rather sung
than said. I shall take as my authority one of the best sportsmen of his
day, Mr. Thomas Smith, author of the "Diar