As they continued without any stopping, I resorted to the only means then in my power, and ran through a herd of deer, with which the forest abounds. This plan succeeded, and probably saved my life; for when the deer heard the hounds coming towards them in full cry, they came straight after me in the line I had run, and so spoilt the scent which I had left. I well recollect, a short time after this, overhearing, as I lay in my kennel, the following conversation between two men as they rode by: “What a pity it is that Mr. Codrington is so silent when his hounds are hunting their fox.” “Well, I don’t know that; for suppose now you saw some weasels hunting a rabbit, do you think they would hunt it better if some fellow was to keep on hallooing to them?” No reply followed the question, although I anxiously waited to hear one. As far as I was concerned, I regretted that more noise was not made, as it would have assisted me, and not the hounds. The silent system is, at all events, a most dangerous one for the fox before he is found. I have had some narrow escapes from these very hounds being brought to a small covert or bog in this forest so silently that they surrounded me before I was aware, and I have with difficulty got away from them. Indeed, many female foxes have thus been killed heavy with cub, and in that state incapable of great exertion. Had these females heard the huntsman’s voice in time they might have moved and run to earth, or shown in what state they were, so that the hounds might have been stopped in time to save their lives. As to the system of not assisting the hounds, I am sure that every fox will agree with me in approving it. Give me plenty of roads and dry fallows, or a few deer or sheep, and even when the scent is good I shall not fear to be killed by an unassisted pack. Without such impediments a pack so educated would be the most dangerous of all, and even with them, if in the hands of a judicious huntsman. This pack was (alas! that I should say was, for he is no more,) hunted by a kind-hearted and excellent man, who has been heard to say, at a moment when his hounds were running very hard, and going like Leicestershire—he being nearly twenty stone—“I hope I shall not see them any more till they have killed.” Notwithstanding the system just described, as many of my friends have fallen victims to this pack as to any in this part of the country. Nevertheless here I shall remain for the present, and not go away until I am fairly driven. I now, my friends, conclude for the present the history of my life, only omitting such important events as may happen to come out in the course of your own stories; for I must now call upon you to tell us what you have to say of yourselves. But hold hard there. Who or what art thou, half-bred thing, that durst be showing thy ill-breeding with feigning to sleep, or with eating rabbit, when thou shouldst have listened to the words of thy betters? Cock-tail, speak.