I had gone full nine miles as straight as I could go, and had just turned for the first time to the right, and was ascending the top of the highest point of the down, when, to my great joy, I saw the hounds stopping and trying in vain to recover the scent, which was destroyed by my having run through a large flock of sheep. They now could not hunt the scent a step farther, though on the middle of an open down; and such was the disappointment and chagrin occasioned by it to Sebright, that he was heard by a friend of mine to say, that if the squire would give him a thousand a year, he would not stop to hunt a country, where the scent was so soon entirely lost; and that, until this occurred, nothing in the world would have made him believe that any fox could have run straight away from such a pack as his, under such apparently favourable circumstances. I remained till the following season in this part of the country, in a covert belonging to Sir J. Jervoise, called the Markwells, when I was first roused from my slumber by the voice of another huntsman, Mr. Smith,[2] who at that time hunted his own hounds, known as the Hambeldon pack. It was about one o’clock in the afternoon, in the month of December, and fortunately I prepared myself for a day’s work, for sure enough I had it. When I first broke covert I took the open, and in running had the wind in my face for about two miles, then finding the new pack pressing close to my heels, I turned short back with the wind, which, most fortunately, as it appeared to me, was now blowing in a direction straight to a large earth that I had formerly discovered at Grafham Hill in Sussex. The pace had blown the hounds, and the great change, by turning back and down the wind, caused them to stop for a minute or two; and although I soon heard them again hunting me, at a pace not quite so fast, their perseverance induced me to keep on straight forward. I had already gone for about ten or twelve miles, when, crossing a grass field near some buildings, I was startled at hearing the noise of other hounds close by. It was the pack in Colonel Wyndham’s kennel. A view-halloo, which came from one of his men, made me continue to get on as fast as I could, and by the time it was nearly dark I fortunately reached the large earth at Grafham Hill. I had not been there for more than a few minutes when, lying with my head near the entrance of the earth in order to breathe more freely, I heard the hounds come up to the spot and try to get in, on which I retreated, but no farther than I was obliged to do, according to the plan I always adopted when distressed or nearly run down.