No sooner done, than “Cover hoick!” reached my astonished ears, and I instantly left my kennel prepared for a start. In a few minutes I was stealing away, and after clearing the wall and running in the open moor, I passed near the gentleman, I suppose, who was expected, and who, on seeing me, said not a word. I therefore, thinking I was unseen, did not turn back to the covert, but, laying my ears well back on my poll, took straight away across the moor, and just had a glimpse of the hounds and their noble huntsman, Lord Elcho,[6] topping the wall at the same time. My flight, however, was too rapid to allow time for much curiosity. This was enough to make me go my best pace straight across the moor for four miles, and then a mile or two beyond, over fields, till I reached a hanging covert on a steep by the side of the Whitadder River, at which time the hounds were not more than four hundred yards from me. Although they did not see me, they ran the whole way as if they really did. Here, although there was soon another fox or two moving, they still went on with my scent; for with the most unerring judgment this huntsman kept the pack from changing, till at length I crossed the river and over the moor on the other side to a place of refuge, a crevice in a rock, for I could not go farther. The gentlemen rode up, and I heard these words: “Well, I never saw a finer run. During the first four miles the tail hounds never got to the head at all, though not one hundred yards behind those that were leading when they first started.” On other occasions I have saved my life in a similar way, but a circumstance occurred which almost made me resolve never again to resort to a drain. I was one night crossing a farm, not many miles from Dunse, when I heard cries as of a fox in distress, and on going to the spot whence the noise proceeded I discovered that two of my brethren were confined in a stone drain, where they had been several days without food, and were nearly starved. I used every exertion in my power to scratch away the stones which had been placed to stop up the entrance, in order to prevent a fox going into it, as Lord Elcho’s hounds were to meet near it next day. Fortunately Mr. Wilson, the owner of the land, passed that way and saw that the ground and stones had been lately disturbed by me, when he removed them, and saw the two foxes, one of which was found dead shortly after. He ascertained that his man had stopped them in nine days before, and that he forgot to open the drain again.