I’ll sing you a sporting song that was made by a sporting pate, Of a fine old hunting Squire, who has a fine estate, And who keeps his hounds and hunters at a liberal old rate, And plenty gives to the poor and old who enter at his gate; Like a fine old hunting Squire, one of the present day. His custom is, when at the Meet, to welcome great and small, And a hearty greeting gives he to friends and neighbours all; ’Tis here the laugh and joke and jest right merrily go round, “But hark, my boys! pray, cease your noise; for now sly Reynard’s found!” Cries our fine old hunting Squire, one of the present day. Although threescore and ten his years, he boldly takes the lead, And flies the gate, the brook, and wall, and sweeps along the mead; He never swerves nor cranes--not he; his true heart’s in the sport. Oh! our fine old hunting Squire is one of the right sort! A fine old hunting Squire, one of the present day. From scent to view they run him now, in vain fleet Reynard flies, The ringing pack have doomed his death--he struggles, but he dies! And at the finish who was there? Why he who at the burst Led the boldest and the best, in the foremost flight was first-- Our fine old hunting Squire, one of the present day. “A beautiful chaunt!” ejaculated I, pleased with the sporting rhyme, “and one which shall have place in ‘The Life of a Foxhound.’” * * * * * Having doubtlessly made every note of value which could be drawn from his experience, Ringwood’s memoir here ends from want of material, and the earnest disposition on the part of his biographer of wishing to prove neither monotonous nor wearisome. It was deemed by that wise hound that a history or tale, when told, should, like a fox, when killed, be broken up and finished. To this, therefore, we will give an appropriate one in a ringing WHO-WHOOP! THE END. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of a Foxhound, by John Mills