and some half-dozen more, bustled after Bragg; while the worthy master Mr.
Puffington, Lumpleg, Washball, Crane, Guano, Shirker, and very many others,
came pounding along the lane. There was a good scent, and the hounds shot
across the Fleecyhaughwater Meadows, over the hill, to the village of
Berrington Roothings, where, the fox having been chased by a cur, the
hounds were brought to a check on some very bad scenting-ground, on the
common, a little to the left of the village, at the end of a quarter of an
hour or so. The road having been handy, the hard riders were there almost
as soon as the soft ones; and there being no impediments on the common,
they all pushed boldly on among the now stooping hounds.

'Hold hard, gentlemen!' exclaimed Mr. Bragg, rising in his stirrups and
telegraphing with his right arm. 'Hold hard!--pray do!' added he, with
little better success. 'Dim it, gen'lemen, hold hard!' added he, as they
still pressed upon the pack. 'Have a little regard for a huntsman's
raputation,' continued he. 'Remember that it rises and falls with the sport
he shows'--exhortations that seemed to be pretty well lost upon the field,
who began comparing notes as to their respective achievements, enlarging
the leaps and magnifying the distance into double what they had been.
Puffington and some of the fat ones sat gasping and mopping their brows.

Seeing there was not much chance of the hounds hitting off the scent by
themselves, Mr. Bragg began telegraphing with his arm to the whippers-in,
much in the manner of the captain of a Thames steamer to the lad at the
engine, and forthwith they drove the pack on for our swell huntsman to make
his cast. As good luck would have it, Bragg crossed the line of the fox
before he had got half-through his circle, and away the hounds dashed, at a
pace and with a cry that looked very like killing. Mr. Bragg was in
ecstasies, and rode in a manner very contrary to his wont. All again was
life, energy, and action; and even some who hoped there was an end of the
thing, and that they might go home and say, as usual, 'that they had had a
very good run, but not killed,' were induced to proceed.

Away they all went as before.

At the end of eighteen minutes more the hounds ran into their fox in the
little green valley below Mountnessing Wood, and Mr. Bragg had him
stretched on the green with the pack baying about him, and the horses of
the field-riders getting led about by the country people,