Two hounds of Baron Rothschild’s breed, Unmatched for courage, breath, and speed, Close on his flying traces came, And nearly won the desperate game. But just as the Earl was preparing to sound The dreaded “whoo-whoop”--why, he ran to ground; So they dug him out; and the Earl and his groom, And the Browns and the gent and the man with the broom, And the fox and the hounds are at Tring again, And the Earl has gone back by the five o’clock train. How well I remember some of those illegitimate days, and at this distance of time I can do no harm in telling tales of those with whom I was a _post facto_ accomplice. Not only I, but the very hounds knew what was “up” when we met at Liverton. Hounds’ heads all one way; ears cocked and sterns waving, and every now and again a dash of the wilder members of the pack, followed by cracking whips and hunt servants galloping round the paddock. Such days remain clear in my memory. The fox generally had been procured overnight from the great sea-cliffs of Boulby, where it was dangerous for hounds to draw, and where many a leading hound has met his end with a last fearful fall of 600 feet into the North Sea. I recollect a particularly long and trying run, when, after a fast twenty minutes over the stiff enclosures between Moorsholm and Grinkle, and after crossing two of the deep gills that run up inland from the sea, our fox took the open moor, with some seven or eight survivors of the field in hot pursuit. His first point was Danby Beacon, and, keeping the high ridge of the moor for awhile, he turned south into the valley of the Esk. A very excellent specimen of the Cleveland hunting farmer, George Codling, senior, who will after this lapse of time forgive me for naming him, had now the best of it, and beat me to Castleton Park, being clearly first up when hounds pulled down their fox on the very edge of the Esk River. I was there a moment after Codling, and struggled with him to reach the fox, now in deep water, in the midst of the swimming pack, for these were the days when men turned their horses adrift, and almost fought for the honour of the brush, which fell to him who took the fox from the hounds. In our scuffle at the water’s edge, while we were using our hunting-crops as boat-hooks, I unintentionally knocked Codling’s hat into the river, thinking little of such a trivial accident at such a moment; but not so Mr. Codling, who was hot with excitement, and annoyed by my efforts, which so far had only resulted in boat-hooking the fox into deeper waters. To lose the brush and his hat was too much, and though it was sleeting and bitterly cold, we both of us had difficulty in keeping our language at a decent temperature. I was too intent on my fishing, being up to the waist and having a tug of war with the hounds over the disputed trophy, to much heed the noise of my companion. When, at last, after a successful dive for the remains, I regained the bank with the