“Is Mr. Smith here?”
“Not yet, my lord.”
“Well, I never was so thoroughly drenched; never rode twenty-four miles in such a deluge; so, by Jove, I can’t wait. Give me my horse.”
No sooner done, than “Cover hoick!” reached my astonished ears, and I instantly left my kennel prepared for a start. In a few minutes I was stealing away, and after clearing the wall and running in the open moor, I passed near the gentleman, I suppose, who was expected, and who, on seeing me, said not a word. I therefore, thinking I was unseen, did not turn back to the covert, but, laying my ears well back on my poll, took straight away across the moor, and just had a glimpse of the hounds and their noble huntsman, Lord Elcho,[6] topping the wall at the same time. My flight, however, was too rapid to allow time for much curiosity. This was enough to make me go my best pace straight across the moor for four miles, and then a mile or two beyond, over fields, till I reached a hanging covert on a steep by the side of the Whitadder River, at which time the hounds were not more than four hundred yards from me. Although they did not see me, they ran the whole way as if they really did.
Here, although there was soon another fox or two moving, they still went on with my scent; for with the most unerring judgment this huntsman kept the pack from changing, till at length I crossed the river and over the moor on the other side to a place of refuge, a crevice in a rock, for I could not go farther. The gentlemen rode up, and I heard these words: “Well, I never saw a finer run. During the first four miles the tail hounds never got to the head at all, though not one hundred yards behind those that were leading when they first started.”
On other occasions I have saved my life in a similar way, but a circumstance occurred which almost made me resolve never again to resort to a drain. I was one night crossing a farm, not many miles from Dunse, when I heard cries as of a fox in distress, and on going to the spot whence the noise proceeded I discovered that two of my brethren were confined in a stone drain, where they had been several days without food, and were nearly starved. I used every exertion in my power to scratch away the stones which had been placed to stop up the entrance, in order to prevent a fox going into it, as Lord Elcho’s hounds were to meet near it next day. Fortunately Mr. Wilson, the owner of the land, passed that way and saw that the ground and stones had been lately disturbed by me, when he removed them, and saw the two foxes, one of which was found dead shortly after. He ascertained that his man had stopped them in nine days before, and that he forgot to open the drain again.
I once crossed the Tweed at a dangerous part, thinking that I should, by so doing, leave the hounds and all behind. Not so; for the huntsman was not to be stopped, but swam his horse, as two or three others did, across the river, Treadwell, Mr. Robertson’s[7] huntsman, taking the lead. Having thus crossed the river without gaining my point, and running in a ring of several miles, I recrossed the river at a spot where it was impossible for horses to cross; so that, being a long way round, the hounds were stopped, and it was agreed that I was drowned in the Tweed.
Having seen some part of the country on the English side of the Tweed, I determined to cross back to it; and after being there a short time only, and lying in a field of large turnips, not uncommon in this part, I was awakened by hearing a loud voice: “Treadwell, I wish you would draw the hounds through this turnip field. It is a very likely place to find a fox.” This order was obeyed with the utmost silence; but fortunately, having had the previous notice, I was off and away as fast as my legs could carry me, and was not seen, owing to the height of the turnips, until I reached the next field. The hounds soon got on my scent, and pursued me closely for about twenty-five minutes, so extremely fast, that I began to think I had changed my country for the worse.
Independently of their great speed, I could not hear them, as I did those by which I had been hunted on the other side of Tweed. I reached in safety a small covert, in passing through which it appeared that the hounds got on the scent of another fox, which turned out to be a cub, and so I escaped; for although an old sportsman saw me after I left the covert going apparently much distressed, and evidently the hunted fox, yet the hounds were not allowed to be taken from that which they were running, which it appeared they some time afterwards killed, scarcely having left the covert.
I had one or two more escapes from this determined huntsman and his killing pack, which escapes I attributed to my good luck in having been hunted by them on bad scenting days, and also in taking refuge in drains. Learning that many of my friends had been killed by them, I was induced to move into Roxburghshire, the country hunted by the Duke of Buccleuch’s hounds, and adjoining the two hunts before described to you. There I had not been long before I was found in a small covert by the Duke’s pack, as Williamson the huntsman[8] calls it, though he seems to do just what he likes with it. Be that as it may, he knew pretty well where to find me, and it was done in a few minutes. The hills form a part of the country that he surpasses most men in riding across; and after running over them for some time towards the Cheviots, the blue tops of which seemed at the time to be higher than the clouds, the hounds came to a check, owing as it was thought, to my having overtaken some cattle, and to too much delay in holding on the hounds; and I escaped.