A letter of Russell’s thus describes his first adventure with a party bent on murdering a fox in his new country:—
“During the winter of the first year I was at Iddesleigh, the snow at the time lying deep on the ground, a native—Bartholomew, alias Bat, Anstey—came to me and said, ‘Hatherleigh bell is a-ringing, sir.’ ‘Ringing for what?’ I asked, with a strong misgiving as to the cause of it. ‘Well, sir, they’ve a-tracked a fox in somewhere; and they’ve a-sot the bell a-going to collect the people to shoot un.’ ‘Come, Bat, speak out like a man,’ I replied, ‘and tell me where it is.’ ‘In Middlecot Earths, sir; just over the Ockment.’
“I was soon on the spot with about ten couple of my little hounds, and found standing around the earths about a hundred fellows, headed, I am almost ashamed to say, by two gentlemen—Mr. Veale, of Passaford, and Mr. Morris, of Fishley. I remonstrated with these gentlemen, and told them plainly that if they would leave the earths, and preserve foxes for me, I would show them more sport with my little pack in one day than they would see in a whole year by destroying the gallant animal in so un-English a way.
“Impressed, apparently, by what I had said, both gentlemen instantly bade me good morning, turned on their heels, and left the place; while a few shillings distributed among the rest, by way of compensation for the disappointment I had caused them, induced them to disperse and leave me almost the sole occupant of the situation.
“Then, after waiting half an hour near the spot, I turned my head towards home; but before I arrived there I met a man open-mouthed, bawling out, ‘They’ve a-tracked a fox into Brimblecombe, for I hear the Dowland bell a-going.’
“So off I went to Dowland in post-haste; found out where the fox was lying, turned him out of a furze-bush, ran him one hour and forty minutes—a blaze of scent all the way—and took him up alive before the hounds on the very earths I had so lately quitted; where, unfortunately for him, a couple of scoundrels had remained on the watch, and had consequently headed him short back from that stronghold.”
But Russell had not yet finished with the fox-killers, for he says: “The very next day after the run from Brimblecombe, a man came to Iddesleigh on purpose to inform me that the bell was going at Beaford, and that a fox had been traced into a brake near that hamlet. The brake, in reality, though not far from Iddesleigh, was in Mr. Glubb’s country; but feeling sure that the necessity of the case would justify the encroachment, I let out the hounds at once, and hurried to the spot with all speed.
“On arriving at the brake I found only one man near it; and he, placed there as sentinel, was guarding it from disturbance with a watchful eye. I asked him to tell me where the fox was, but he gave me a very impertinent answer. Pulling out half a crown, I said, ‘There, my man, I’d have given you that if you had told me where he was.’ The fellow’s eye positively sparkled at sight of the silver. ‘Let me have it, then,’ he replied, ‘and I will show you where he is to a yard.’