They seemed to exult in their prowess, and whilst they were proudly throwing back their heads, and rowing in triumph round their victim, I took an opportunity of crossing the water on another side and escaped, resolving never in swimming to encounter the same risk again. Nothing worth relating occurred until towards the beginning of the following winter. It is true that I was often induced to move and to quit the wood in which I lay, owing to my being disturbed by the hounds; but as they never followed me far, and were stopped by the whipper-in when I left the covert, it was evident they came on purpose to hunt young cubs; I therefore took care to retire to a gorse-covert near Sutton Common, where none were bred, much to the regret of the owner, a Rev. Baronet, who is one of our greatest friends, as no keeper of his would dare to destroy a fox without pain of losing his place. Here I remained quiet for some months, till one morning I was waked by the noise of Foster the huntsman; and shortly afterwards the whimpering of a hound told me that he was on the scent left by my footsteps on my way to my kennel, although it was where I had passed before day, and several hours had gone by. I was led by the wind that day to take them over a country seldom if ever gone over by them before, namely, Wolmer Forest, crossing one or two rivers, from extreme dread of this huntsman and his powerful pack. Whether it was the water or the fences that stopped him, I cannot say, but I suspect it was the latter; although a few years before nothing could have done it. The hounds were at times running without him, and it was in consequence of that, I think, that I eventually beat him and escaped. In the course of a few days I returned to the same covert, and had not been there more than fourteen more when this man’s awful voice startled me again.