and the master being out of sight, I followed one of the whips as he
struck into a blind path in a wood. It was a tangled mass of briers,
but he went in at full pace, and evidently there was no time to be
lost. At the other side of the copse there was a set of low bars, and
beyond this a small, slimy ditch. My leader cleared the bars, but
his horse's hind feet slipped on the bank of the ditch, and he fell
backwards with an ugly kind of sprawl that I had no time to examine,
for Dick took the leap easily and soon brought me into a field where,
on a little hillock, and quite alone, stood the huntsman, dismounted,
holding the dead fox high in his left hand, while with his long-leashed
hunting-crop he kept the hungry and howling pack at bay. The master
soon came up, as did about a dozen others, including a bright little
boy on a light little pony. The fox's head (mask), tail (brush), and
feet (pads) were now cut off and distributed as trophies under the
master's direction. The carcass was then thrown to the pack, that
fought and snarled over it until, in a twinkling, the last morsel had
disappeared. This was the "death,"--by no means the most engaging part
of the amusement. From the find to the killing was only twenty-five
minutes, into which had been crowded more excitement and more physical
happiness than I had known for many a long day.
The second cover drawn was not far away. With this fox we had two
hours' work, mainly through woods at a walk and with the hounds
frequently at fault, but with some good leaping. Finally he was run to
earth and abandoned.
We then went to a cover near Bubbenhall, but found no fox, and then,
with the same luck, to another east of Baggington. It was now nearly
four o'clock, growing dusk, and beginning to rain. The hounds started
for their kennels, and Dick and I took a soft bridle-path skirting the
charming road that leads, under such ivy-clad tree-trunks and between
such hedges as no other land can show, through Stoneleigh Village and
past Stoneleigh Abbey to Leamington, and a well-earned rest.
* * * * *
My memorandum for that day closes: "Horse, £2 12_s._ 6_d._; Fees,
2_s._; and well worth the money."
THE END.