They soon found a fox, drove him to the open, and followed him out of the wood with a whimpering sort of cry which was disappointing after the notion that the "full cry" of the books had given, and which is heard in the very different fox-hunting of our Southern woods. The run lay up a steepish hill, several fields wide and across an open country. One bold rider (not a light one), mounted on a staving black horse, went to the right of the cover, and made a splendid leap up hill, over a stiff-looking hedge, and landed at the tail of the pack. The "master" and his assistants had got away with the hounds. The rest of the field went to the left, waiting their turns, through a farm-gate. Once through, some twenty of them dashed up the hill, cleared a clever hedge, and kept the pack in sight. The rest took an easier place, where a farm laborer had pulled away the stakes by which a gap had been filled. Here there was much very light jumping, and much more of waiting until predecessors had made it lighter. In the mean time other gaps were found, and it was not many minutes before all were through; but during these minutes the fox, the hounds, and the harder riding men were putting a wide space between themselves and us, who were at the tail of the field. Yet there were some in the party who did not look like laggards, and whose horses were good enough for any work such a country could give them. Even when across the gap, these men went with the rest of us, by gates and lanes, toward a point to which it was thought by the knowing ones that the fox would double,--and the knowing ones were right. Gradually, as their judgment indicated, they left the roads and took to the fields. This course was taken by three well-mounted young ladies. I followed the gate-openers for about half an hour, when, coming out on a high-road, I concluded that, with seventeen miles to ride home, it was only just to my little mare to give the thing up and head for Leamington. The hounds were far away on my right and quite out of sight.