After this tragical event I lost no time, but went to the farthest covert belonging to this estate, and nearly surrounded by Lord Elcho’s country. I hoped to be there as far as possible from danger, and thought myself secure, as the outside covert was kept quiet, and scarcely disturbed even by the hounds of the Duke in whose hunt it is retained. It is suspected that the keeper kills all of us foxes that he can in that part, because no hounds hunt it enough. He says that all the foxes in Lord Elcho’s country come there to be quiet. Be that as it may, the last time the hounds found me there they had before drawn all the other woods, and only found one fox, and that a mangy one. I was disturbed first by hearing Old Will cheering his hounds, as if he had just seen a fox, giving his cheer thus, “Hooi-here, here, here!” which, in any other country, would pass for a view-halloo. After listening and expecting to hear the hounds in full cry, I found it was only his customary cry in drawing a whin covert, particularly when he wished his hounds to get into it. I noticed that they did not attend to the halloo so readily when a fox was really seen. Notwithstanding this, they understood their huntsman’s system well enough to make it no safe thing to be hunted by them. I soon left the covert, and when they had pursued me for some miles, and were getting nearer to me, they suddenly came to a check; on looking back, I saw the huntsman almost immediately take them away beyond the next large field, rather to the left of where my line was hitherto pointing; I suppose either because there was a flock of sheep in that field, or because he thought I had gone to a covert in that direction. If the hounds had had their time, they would have hit off the scent to the right of the field. The upshot was, that I, thinking that they had given me up, took the first opportunity of getting out of sight, not because I was tired and beaten, as some suppose must always be the case when we seek such places of refuge; which they soon ascertained was the case, for nearly as soon as the hounds had hunted up to the drain on one side of the road, I started off on the other, and though they had as good a start with me as they could wish for, I contrived to run away from them, owing to the scent not being good enough for hounds to kill a stout fox without assistance; and probably to the huntsman repeating his former mistake in making an injudicious forward cast when not wanted. He did not now venture to hold the hounds forward and across the line I came, or else they would have got on the scent, as I returned nearly the same way, which was ascertained by a hunter on his return home, a man having seen me.