in different parts of the cover before a decided stream of melody indicated any thing better than riot, when a loud, oft-repeated, most masterly "TALLYHO!" to the south, announced that reynard had been seen. Away they all cut to the place, where they found a young ploughman, purple with shouting, in the act of loosing a horse from the harrows to join in the chase, leaving t'other ar'd nag to follow with the harrows, if it liked. The ground was very dry, but there was a good scent in cover, and not a bad one out; indeed, if truth must be told, wet is not indispensable to scent, and one of the best scenting days we ever saw was when the ground was as dry as in summer. to the hunt. But The great business of a huntsman to a scratch pack is to lay his dogs on the scent-" casting," and "lifting," and "throwing in at head;" all scientific manœuvres, in short, are only for your fifteen hundred, or two thousand a year packs. What can you expect for eight pound ten? The scratch gentleman puts his hounds on the scent, and it is their business to tell which way the owner of the scent goes, and not his. So it was with Joshua. His poor, half-starved, broken-down steed was quite done by the time it got to the halloa, and, instead of setting to, and riding in the naughty way Mr. Holyoake did in the "Quarterly," with a couple of hounds or so on the scent, Joshua very deliberately got off, and sitting astride the fence rails, began puffing and blowing his horn to get all the redoubtable dogs out of cover that he could. That feat being accomplished, at least as far as he could judge by the absence of noise, he shifted his saddle back off the poor galled jade's withers, re-adjusted the piece of carpeting, and proceeded at a gentle trot along the higher ground of the line they had gone; his next business being to catch and couple the dogs at the end, for which purpose he carried two most formidable bunches of couples at his saddle. So he hobbled and jingled away at his leisure. The majority of our readers, we dare say, will have had experience enough of the elongated, straggling style in which scratch packs do their "splendid work;" the difficulty there is in telling which field has the head, and which the tail. Perhaps some of them may have unpleasant reminiscences connected therewith, so, as our paper is short, and our dinner we sincerely hope nearly ready, we will wind up this part of our sketch by describing the scene that burst on Joshua's astonished vision as, on rounding Fourburrow Hill, he came all at once upon Woolridge Valley. What "strange confusion there was in the vale below!" as the poet sings. First and foremost were Mr. Sylvanus Bluff's swallow tails flying out, as, horse whip in hand, he hurried from one upturned ewe to another rescuing herself or her lamb from the fury of the savage pack. Others were similarly engaged, while their horses fled or grazed at their leisure. Dead ewes and lambs were scattered around, while some of the more depraved of the pack actually did battle with the rescuers for the bodies of their victims. Others sneaked stealthily around, diving up to the very eyes in blood as opportunity offered, and those that had gorged themselves with tender lamb, curved their distended sides, and sought repose among the bushes on the hill. So the last state of Mr. Sylvanus Bluff was a deal worse than the first. MORAL. All you kindly disposed, generous-minded, country gentlemen who encourage fox-hunting without partaking of it yourselves, make allowances for masters, and beware, oh! beware, of the Scratchley dogs. And now we really think, what with the chapter on the weather and this moral on the "muttons," we have done something to rescue our work from the charge of utter uselessness. It is somewhat singular that we should extract a moral from the misfortunes of the man who made the complaint; but truth is stronger than fiction, and performs far |