“It was a very pretty sight to see the hounds dash into the river without the slightest hesitation, four or five abreast, headed by the old white bitch Bonnybell.” Here is just one more good hunt: “_Colnbrook Cross Roads._ We drew the Island blank but found directly we got outside it and ran well along the side of Richings Park, which she threaded and broke again for the Colne, which she crossed and then recrossed, causing very difficult hunting. Then having got some way before us she began a series of tricks enough to puzzle Old Nick himself, but old Limber seemed to understand her dodges, and it was wonderful to see the way he picked out her doubles and then brought the whole pack round him in a second with one of his well-known notes so welcome to hounds as well as huntsman. We went on thus very slowly for some way when luckily our hare got up again and we got on better terms; but we soon got on to some black fallow and they had to hunt every yard and at last to be lifted on to some grass, where they hit it off again and ran nearly back to the plantation, where she turned round and lay down by the Colne. She got up in view, and they ran well for some little time. But getting on to some black fallow again, they could not even own the line, so Hunt lifted them over and they soon took it up on the other side and ran pretty well over a road and round a pretty big field, where we again viewed her, and this time she went decidedly groggy. She ran some way down a road (bless the roads!) and we had a little difficulty, but we soon got on her in a wheat field, where we viewed her, and she had been joined by another hare. This was a bad job, and Hunt felt rather up a tree. However he halloed to inform the fresh hare of our arrival. Accordingly, when they got to the ditch at the bottom, they separated, and Hunt by a great effort just managed to whip them off the fresh hare, and as our old hare had stopped behind a tree, not being able to get over the ditch, when Hunt got over it he found Mr. Portal at the bottom of the ditch (it was about four feet deep), having got hold of the hare, with the pack worrying and tearing at the hare on top of him. The pack also were most of them in the ditch, and we had quite a job to get him out. Why on earth the hounds did not bite him nobody knew, for he wouldn’t loose the hare and neither would the hounds, so we had to pull the whole boiling up together. He luckily escaped with a scratch or two, and looked very lovely when he appeared looking rather as if his clothes were made of damp mud. The time was 2 hours 25 minutes. An excellent performance for hounds, huntsman and whips, for not only was the scent execrably bad on the fallows, but the hare was one of the strongest and biggest ‘whatever was seen,’ as Mr. Jorrocks would say. It was quite the finest hare Hunt ever killed.” [Illustration: ROWLAND HUNT (CENTRE) WITH HIS WHIPS AND HOUNDS.]