Though you often wait several anxious minutes by the side of a patch of gorse the size of a flower-garden, in these large woods, you almost always find instantaneously; and we had not occupied our station for many seconds ere the note of a hound brought our hearts into our mouths. Another and another certified the truth of the declaration, and presently a grand crash and peal of deep-mouthed music proclaimed that there was a capital scent. Twice they forced their fox to the very gate at which we were standing. Twice huntsmen and master came splashing and floundering up the deep ride, to go away with them; but the third time the fox made his point good, as these game woodland gentlemen will, and whisking his brush gallantly, put his head straight for the open within twenty yards of us. I had just turned to holloa; nay, was opening my mouth for the purpose, when a low, quiet voice in my ear whispered, “Don’t make a noise;” and the Earl was close to me. How he got there I never knew; but he seemed to have an instinctive perception of my intention, and a morbid fear lest I should “get their heads up.” In another moment the music, increasing in volume, reached the edge of the wood, and then the whole pack (not one missing, for I heard the Earl say so to the second whip) came pouring out over the fence, and proceeded to run in a steady, business-like stream over the adjacent field. “Give them a moment!” said the master; and away he went alongside of them—best pace. There was none of the usual hurry and confusion that may be witnessed in most fields, when a fox goes away. The red-coats dropped at once into their places, the undergraduate taking the lead gallantly, in a line of his own. The farmers caught hold of their horses, and proceeded as if they meant business. The nondescript charged the gate I have mentioned, in preference to a straggling hedge with an awkward bank, and seemed determined to see all the fun while he could; and I followed his Lordship hoping to take advantage of his experience, although contrary to my usual principle. It was only the third time I had ridden Apple-Jack, and I had not yet acquired thorough confidence in my horse. Alas! my amusement was doomed to meet with an early termination. The first fence I negotiated most successfully; the second I avoided by making use of a friendly gate; the third landed me in a rushy pasture, over which the hounds were streaming, and whence I obtained an extensive view of the surrounding country, and the line we were likely to run. A black belt of wood crowned the horizon, and towards it the fox was obviously pointing. In the interval lay a fair, flat country—green and pastoral; but a foot-bridge, a quarter of a mile to the right, and a stunted willow or two in the next field, denoted the vicinity of the omnipresent Sludge. I dreaded it even then. But I might have spared myself my apprehensions. Before I arrived at it, a low hedge and ditch