“You would be the last to carry out that principle, I’m sure,” observed Rubicon. “I don’t know that,” rejoined the old hound. “It’s very tantalizing and dispiriting to be stopped the moment a fox, which we have taken the trouble and pains to find, breaks away. We meet with enough disappointments which can’t be avoided, throughout a season, without having such as these thrust upon us.” “But we are continually so stopped in cub-hunting,” returned Rubicon. “That’s quite a different matter,” said Trimbush. “There are then two or three brace of ’em afoot, perhaps, and they get headed back as well as ourselves. We can always reckon, too, upon plenty of sport at that time; but at the end of a season, when foxes are thin, it----” At this moment I winded the glorious scent again, and, throwing my tongue, bang a great dark-coloured fox went across a ride. Trimbush cut short his harangue, and, forgetting the cause of his anger, flew to my side, and away we rattled. “Have at him!” hallooed Will. “Have at him, darlings! Yoiks, have at him!” Up went Tom Holt’s cap again. “All right, sir,” I heard him say. “As fine a dog-fox as ever was seen.” Through the furze we dashed, and out burst more than two-thirds of us close to his brush. _Twang, twang, twang, twang_, went Will’s horn. “For’ard, for’ard!” hallooed Ned Adams: “get to him hounds, get to him! For’ard! for’_ard_!” For fifteen minutes we flew along at our best pace, over a country, without even a bush strong enough to hold him. The scent being breast high, we cut out some of the sharpest work for the best and boldest to ride to us. “His point’s the main earth at the Curby brake,” said Trimbush; “but old ‘fox-fix’ has been there with his spade and pickaxe, I’ll be bound.” The cover spoken of by my companion was quickly gained, and on the slope of a steep bank, thickly twined with the stubborn roots of some neighbouring oaks, we ran straight to the mouth of a closed earth. “Ha, ha!” laughed Trimbush, “I said so. If he had poked his nose underground here, they might have dug for a week to no purpose.” We now carried it through the brake, and, sinking some rising ground, entered Bushford Woodlands. Here the small enclosures and thick fences began to tell both upon us and the field, and instead of carrying a head in one close and compact body, many began to tail and string in the rear. As near as I can guess we had ran ten miles from the find without the check of a moment, when we threw up at a gate leading into a road. We flew over it, and saw an old woman with a red cloak on, screaming most lustily; but whether from fright or joy I could not discover. To the left we went, but not making it out, turned short to the right, when Will blowing a “come-to-me,” off we swept to the summons. “I saw it, sir,” I heard the woman shriek; “I saw it, sir, as plain as the nose on your face, jump over the gate and then jump back again. And it’s put me all in such a twitter that----”