It was the second week in April, and the last day of the season, that we jogged slowly along the road to the meet. The season had been unusually forward, and the air was fragrant with the early violets and primroses, decking the roadside banks. There was a haze rolling along the valleys, and the boughs and branches of the trees, now unfolding their luxuriant and freshest green, were glittering with myriads of dew-drops, flashing in the light of the young spring morn.

Punctuality being the standing order with our Squire, Will often consulted his watch to regulate our pace, so that we should be at the fixture exactly at the time named; and as we approached Duvale village, the church clock was striking the hour of ten. Turning on to a patch of green, where a few geese and a lonely dejected-looking donkey cropped the meagre herbage, and a host of round-faced chubby children played, and madly screamed with joy to see us arrive, we formed a group around Will’s horse in eager expectation of the Squire’s coming. The hum of the last stroke had scarcely ceased, when the sharp pit-a-pat of a horse’s feet was heard, and immediately afterwards the Squire came cantering up, accompanied by three or four of his friends.

I was glad to see that the field comprised those only who hunted regularly with us, and, although many of them were generally too anxious to get forward, and thought of little more than showing well in the first flight, yet there was no fear of much unsportsman-like conduct on their part.

Without the loss of a minute we trotted off to our first draw, a long and narrow belt of fir trees, with thick brushwood at the bottom, which proved a blank. We then drew a line of small spinnies, and in one of them, at the furthest end up wind, I saw two or three old hounds flourish their sterns at one spot, and before I could reach it, a first-seasoned one, like myself, called Boaster, threw his tongue.

“Gently, Boaster,” hallooed Will, giving an admonitory crack of the whip. “Gently, Boaster.”

Upon pushing my nose among the group, I inhaled a slight scent of the animal; but it was very faint.

“It’s a stale drag,” said Trimbush, “and he may be twenty miles away by this time. Who opened on it?” asked he.

“Boaster,” replied I, fearing that he might think me guilty of the puppy-like deed.

“Then I tell you this, youngster,” rejoined the old hound, “if you’re so free with your tongue, you’ll have reason to wish, some day, that it had been cut out at your birth.”

“But it was the right scent,” expostulated Boaster; “and how could I tell if it was stale or not?”

“Then your nose is not worth a damn,” returned Trimbush, passionately. “At any rate,” continued he, “you might have a little decent modesty, and not take precedency of us.”

Trimbush placed a very strong emphasis upon the “us,” and Boaster, ashamed and abashed, drooped his stern, and, for the remainder of the day, did not again attempt playing first fiddle.

We were now taken about two miles, and thrown into a large rambling cover, composed of patches of gorse, bramble, and nutwood.

“I saw some fresh billets just now, sir,” said Ned Adams to the Squire.

“Where?”

“Just under that ash, and on the edge of the gap, sir,” replied the second whip.

“Very well,” rejoined his master.

I was close to Dashwood and Trimbush, when both stopped suddenly, and simultaneously throwing up their heads, both gave long bell-like notes, which rung and echoed far and near.

“Hark to Trimbush!” cried Will Sykes; “hark to Dashwood, hark, hark!” and then, as I and others picked up the grateful scent, and threw our tongues cheerfully, he hallooed, “Hark together, hark!”

Now we closed; now we went full swing. Up went Tom Holt’s cap.

“It’s a vixen, sir,” I heard him say.

“Stop them, then,” replied our master, “and let her go. We can’t spare a bitch fox now.”

Out we crashed; but Tom charged at our heads, cracking his awful double thong, and being well mounted, the most daring of us knew that it was hopeless to endeavour to get away with her. Boaster was the only one who made a lame attempt, and he instantly got a cut across the loins, which sent him flying back into cover howling most piteously.

“It’s a hard case,” said Trimbush, doggedly, “to be whipped off in this fashion, and I don’t think it’s fair. When too late to kill vixens,” continued he, with little apparent inclination to draw the cover again, “why not give up hunting altogether?”

“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——”

A twang, twang, from the horn, drowned the conclusion of the old woman’s delivery, and, trying back, we were quickly on his line again, and making play at topping speed.

“I thought,” observed Trimbush, “that the old woman had headed him; but it doesn’t do for us to try back until we have made our casts good, right and left. It is quite correct for a huntsman to do so if he learns from any cause that the fox has been headed; but we should not speculate upon chances or accidents.”

We now carried it over some deep fallows, and, being very dry and flying, we had to pick through with great care. It was remarkable to see the difference between the old steady hounds and the young and eager ones in these difficulties. With their noses on the ground, the pilots of the pack felt for the scent, here and there and held it forward with patience and perseverance, while the too ardent and flashy ones dashed in all directions, with as much notion of the line of the fox, as that of the rook flying over their heads. After picking through the ploughs we were enabled to up with our heads again, cluster, and go full swing over some small grass fields to a village road, where unfortunately, some dung had been recently carted, and the horrid smell made me feel ready to vomit. Trimbush felt along the road a considerable distance, as it was down wind, before he was satisfied that this was not his line, and then turning up, made about as wide a cast, but to no purpose.

“I wonder,” said the old hound, both vexed and puzzled, “if he has been headed back?”

Rubicon, who must have had a remarkably strong stomach, now jumped upon the steaming, reeking, stinking heap, and, plunging his nose under a loose portion at the top, drew out the fox by a hind leg. In an instant we flew to his assistance, and for the first and last time in my life, I helped to kill a fox on a dung heap.

“Well!” said our master, wiping his bald head, and looking as pleased as at any period that I ever saw him, “we wind up the season with a glorious finish. We were too far behind to see,” he continued; “but of course they must have viewed him into the manure.”

“No doubt, sir,” replied Will, “or he would most likely have beaten us.”

“It only shows,” rejoined the Squire, “to what improbable shifts a sinking fox will have resort. How often men’s brains are racked to discover the why and wherefore that a fox could have beaten their judgment and experience, when, perhaps, he may be close to their elbows without the smallest blame to be attached to either hounds or them for his escape.”

“Or merit to his craft and cunning, you might have added,” said Trimbush. “For when a fox sinks, not only his physical strength is expended, but his mental powers die with it. He is in such a mortal fright, that he cannot think; but like a blown chicken, pokes his head into the first hiding place which presents itself.”

As we were trotting quietly homewards, as proud as peacocks, I saw Trimbush tip Rubicon over the nose with his stern, and drew him from the body on one side of the road.

“Be candid,” said he, in a half whisper. “How was it that you made the fox out in that beastly manure?”

“I winded him,” rejoined Rubicon, with a sly grin.

“Pshaw!” replied the old hound. “It was impossible.”

“Well, well!” interrupted Rubicon, “I admit it. The fact is I jumped on the heap for a very different purpose, and as I did so, I felt something move under my feet. A thought struck me——”

“As it did me,” interrupted Trimbush, “before commencing your explanation. We owe the kill to chance.”