“I hope I’m to my time,” said the Squire, pulling out his watch. “Yes,” continued he, glancing at the dial, “to a minute.”

Immediately after the Squire’s arrival, we were thrown into the cover, and, when about the middle of it, I saw Trimbush feather his stern, and before I could reach him he threw his tongue, and, as he did so, Will Sykes gave a cheer which Echo took pleasure to repeat.

“Hark to Trimbush! Hark to Trimbush! Have at him! Whoop!”

We clustered to him, and, poking my nose to the ground, I drew in a scent which made every hackle on my body stiffen with delight. Up went my head, and forth I sent some music that came from my very heart.

“See that puppy,” said the Squire. “How he loves it.”

“Have at him, Ringwood,” hallooed the huntsman, rising in his stirrups. “Have at him, good hound!” and then, turning to the Squire, I heard him remark, “He’s a perfect wonder, sir.”

“Yes,” was the reply, “he’s the most promising I have ever seen.”

We now got to our fox in a body, and crashed him through the cover. Full swing we flew, and, as we swept out of the furze, I was astonished to lose the scent which we had carried so strong up to the corner of the brake, and flung myself here and there to pick it up again. Most of us were sorely puzzled for a few seconds, when Trimbush, after stooping his nose to the ground for some distance, down wind and up, along the verge of the cover, said to me, “The artful dodger’s slipped back, and shot into the brake again.”

“Tally-ho! tally-ho! Gone away,” hallooed a voice from the farthest end of the cover.

“I told you so,” said Trimbush. “We were too close to him, and he headed back to make the distance greater at the burst.”

I now sniffed the scent again, and, thinking I was showing off, made as much noise as I possibly could.

“Keep your tongue still,” snapped Trimbush. “Like most puppies, two-legged and four, if they possess a good voice, they seldom exhibit equal good sense in using it.”

Twing, twing, twang, twa—a—ng, went Will Sykes’s horn, as he jammed his horse through bush and briar.

“For’ard, for’ard,” shouted Tom Holt. “Get to him, hounds, get to him.”

“Come along,” said Trimbush. “Stick to me.”

“What a clean, fine, lengthy fellow he is!” I heard some one remark. “His point’s Picton Brake.”

“Yes,” replied another. “His brush must be two feet: and what a snowy tag to it!”

“Indeed!” observed Trimbush. “Then we’ll give it such a dusting as to change its colour pretty quickly.”

A bunch of old hounds flew out of cover with us, and, taking up the scent, away we rattled in a body, as close as a swarm of bees.

“They won’t over-ride us to-day,” remarked I.

“Not if the scent lasts as good as it is,” replied Trimbush; “but that’s doubtful.”

For fifteen minutes we burst him along as hard as we could split. The day was fine and warm, and, sinking the wind, the pace began to tell most terribly upon some of us young ones.

“I feel very choky,” said I, doing my best to keep my place.

“Hold on,” returned Trimbush. “He must have crossed the Kulm stream, and there we shall get a cooling plunge.”

In a handful of seconds we neared the water, and dashed into it with as much delight as a flock of thirsty ducks.

“Now,” said Trimbush, “you’ll be able to reach the brake, where, I’d bet my stern to a buck rabbit’s scut, he’ll hang as long as he can and dare.”

“Why so?” inquired I.

“Why so!” repeated Trimbush, rather contemptuously. “Because he must know by this time that he can’t outrun us. The scent’s too good, and we got away with him on such terms that nothing but reaching a strong earth, or changing to a fresh fox, can save him.”

“We must try to keep to our hunted one,” said I, thinking it was exhibiting some wisdom.

“Try!” repeated my friend; “of course we shall try. We always do; but it’s sometimes impossible to distinguish the difference between the scent of our hunted fox and a fresh one. It’s easy enough, when a fox is viewed, to know, because it can be seen whether he’s been shoved along at the expense of his bellows and toilet; but our noses can’t be depended upon.”

As Trimbush said, upon gaining the brake we found the fox hanging in it; and, although very hot, we gave him such a towelling, that, so far from improving his condition, he had better have taken to his pads and faced the open. I saw him a dozen times in cover, and his red rag hung from his open jaws, and his brush dragged along the ground. We pressed him up and down across the rides at a killing pace, and although there was no bullying by holding him in cover, and every opportunity given him to quit it, he still stuck to his quarters.

“You shall either run or die,” said Trimbush, going through the cover like a bullet.

A clear, musical “Tally-ho” now echoed far and wide.

“Gone away at last, eh?” observed my friend, and, throwing up his head, he rushed to the halloo.

“Hold hard!” roared the Squire, as one, too eager, rode nearly over me as I leaped from the cover. “You almost killed, sir,” continued he, “the best of my young entry, and perhaps the most valuable puppy I ever bred.”

“I beg your pardon, sir; but my horse pulls so, that——”

“Then he is not fit to ride to hounds, sir,” hastily rejoined the Squire.

Being high on our mettle, we flashed forward, after just touching the scent on a dry-lying fallow, thinking that we had struck on his line; but Trimbush, and a few of the old hounds, soon found that they were wrong, and, throwing up their heads, came to a check.

“Let them alone,” said the Squire, as Will Sykes indicated a disposition to make a hasty cast down wind. “Let them alone,” repeated he.

“He’s certain to be making for the belt of covers on the ridge, sir,” replied Will, “and the ploughs are so dry that it is impossible for hounds to carry it over them.”

“Let them alone,” quietly rejoined the Squire. “Let them alone.”

“When allowed to make our own casts, which we always should at first,” remarked Trimbush, poking his nose to the ground, “we try down wind first, because that’s the way foxes constantly run. It’s time enough to cast up when we’ve made good the cast down. Humph!” continued he, as if puzzled, “I begin to think Will’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?” inquired I.

“I don’t fancy he’s pointed for the covers on the ridge,” returned Trimbush; “let’s see whether he hasn’t headed back,” continued he.

We now tried up wind, and, sure enough, hit it off again under a hedgerow.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Trimbush. “He’s a sinking one, and has turned to die.”

We now rattled on full swing over a common, and on climbing a steep hill I saw a magpie darting to the ground and then rising high in the air to swoop again.

“What’s that chattering pie doing?” inquired I, directing Trimbush’s attention to the bird.

“Mobbing him,” replied he. “The magpie, jay and crow love to mob a sinking fox. Keep your eye forward; it will soon be from scent to view.”

“Are those covers strong?” I asked, seeing that we were making for a long line of trees.

“Little more than spinnies,” replied my friend. “He can’t hang in them a minute.”

We drove him through these little covers without let, check, or stop; and at the last, out he flew in view of all of us. We rushed at him like greyhounds from the slips; but, with a desperate effort to save his life, he managed to dash round the corner of a barn, and, as we turned, I saw him slipping along on the top of a thick square-topped hawthorn fence, and, springing upon the trunk of a tree covered with ivy, disappear. None of the others saw this artful dodge; but all flashed forward, and were bewildered at not either viewing or being able to hit him off. Trimbush flung himself here and there in a perfect fury, and would not pay the smallest attention to what I had to say.

“Put your nose down and work,” said he passionately, “don’t talk to me.”

“But I tell you——”

“Pshaw!” interrupted Trimbush. “What’s your head in the air for?”

“Because the fox is in the air,” replied I.

“What do you mean?” asked he, seeing that I was serious.

I then told him that which I had seen, and inquired what I should do.

“Hold your tongue,” returned the artful old rogue; “it shows a wise head, I’ve heard. Leave the matter to me.”

In order to monopolize the whole of the credit to himself, Trimbush galloped to the tree and dashed at it, in the attempt to climb the knarled and knotted trunk.

“What’s that hound about?” said the Squire, looking greatly astonished.

I now saw that Trimbush would get all the praise of discovering our fox’s hiding place, and felt greatly vexed with myself that I had not gone at once to the tree and thrown my tongue. The rest now clustered round the leader, who, managing to stick and cling to the ivy, got some dozen feet from the ground.

“He’s gone to tree, sir,” said Will Sykes, exultingly, as he threw himself from the saddle.

“That he has,” returned the Squire, scarcely knowing which to be—more astonished or pleased.

To the infinite surprise of the field, who came dropping up one by one, they saw the huntsman drag a fox by the brush from a hollow in the tree, and catching him by the neck to prevent the visitation of his grinders, hold him up over his head with a halloo that might wake the dead.

“Who-whoop, who-whoop!” cried Tom Holt.

“Who-whoop, who-who-whoop!” hallooed Ned Adams, in his good and choice voice, which always had the effect of working us into a frenzy.

“He’d give us a run now,” lisped a young gentleman in pink, “if he was turned down and had a little law given him.”

I could have bitten his head off.

“My hounds deserve their fox, sir,” replied the Squire. “He is beaten, and nothing but an accidental escape—like this might have been—could have saved him. There have been no unfair means used, from the find to the finish; and the only illiberal, unsportsman-like act, would be now to run the risk of robbing the hounds of that which they have justly won and made their own.”

Not exactly among us, but not far from where I stood—I think Will did it on purpose to please me—the fox was thrown, and my teeth were the first to fix themselves across his loins. I had been taught in cub-hunting not to gripe elsewhere; but as it was, he gave me a nasty pinch in the cheek.

In a few moments afterwards he was given to us to be broken up, and then somebody asked the Squire “if he would not try for another fox, as it was early?”

“No,” replied our master, shaking his head. “We are fifteen miles from kennel. The hounds have had a good deal of fatiguing work in cover, and are satisfied with a novel but glorious finish. I shall not run the risk of tiring them more, perhaps for nothing, and doing away with that spirit which the sport of the day must have given, I hope, to every one present.” And lifting his hat, string high, he bowed and joined the side of his huntsman.

As we trotted along down a bye road, with our sterns well up over our backs, and feeling as proud as peacocks, I heard Will Sykes remark, “It was a good forty minutes, sir.”

“Yes,” replied his master with a slight smile, “but it would not have been so long if you had made that cast.”

“If I had done that, sir,” replied the huntsman, dropping his voice to a whisper, “if I had done that, sir,” repeated he, “we should have lost our fox.”

“Let them alone, eh?” rejoined the Squire, smiling more perceptibly.

“Ay,” returned Will. “Let them alone is a beautiful rule.”