On going to covert, a favourite hound, called Partner, feathered on the scent. The huntsman exclaimed in ecstacy, 'Old Partner touches on him; we shall certainly find in the next covert.' They found the bag-fox, and had a tolerable run; but when they killed him, not a hound would eat him! 'Now, Sir,' said his lordship to the farmer, 'you have deceived the huntsman and the field, but you cannot deceive my hounds.'
Next to turning out bag-men, lifting of hounds is the most prejudicial. They should seldom be taken 'off their noses,' nothing is gained by it in the end; hounds that are seldom lifted will kill more foxes in the course of a season than those that frequently are. Some years ago, when hunting with the Duke of Grafton's hounds in Suffolk, they came to a check all in a moment, at a barn near some cross-roads; they were left alone, and made a fling of themselves, in a perfect circle, without hitting the scent; many gentlemen exclaimed, 'It is all over now, Tom; the only chance you have is to make a wide cast.' 'No,' answered the huntsman, 'if the fox is not in that barn, my hounds ought to be hung.'
Dick Foster, the whipper-in, now huntsman to Mr. Villebois (and a very good one he is), was ordered to dismount and see if he could discover the fox; he returned and said he was not there.' Tom Rose still was positive; at last he was viewed on a beam in the barn, and they killed him, after a further run of about a mile. I mention this trivial circumstance to show you clearly, that if the hounds had been hurried up either of the roads on a wide cast, made by an ignorant huntsman, the fox would inevitably have been lost.
Were I to have some sporting friends coming to see my hounds in the field, I should prefer going away close at him for twenty minutes, then a short check, to bring the hounds to a hunting scent, and a quick thing at last, and run into him, in order that my friends might be convinced the hounds could hunt as well as run; for of this I am certain, if they cannot do both, they merit not the name of foxhounds.
HEAD OF A FAVORITE FOX-HOUND.
HOUNDS IN A BATH.