When life was quite extinct we all gathered together, and a whoop of triumph awoke the echoes, startling the lapwings on the moorland.
As we marched down to the village we fired a volley in token of our success, and cheer after cheer told of the gladness with which it was welcomed by the villagers. The man who fired the lucky shot was carried through the streets of the village on the shoulders of two stout quarrymen, and the whole population gave themselves a holiday and made merry. A large subscription was started, and contributed to handsomely, in order to pay for the hounds and other expenses.
Upon examination the bitch was found to be branded on the left side with the letter "P;" so if any of my readers have lost such a dog, they will know what has become of it.
I do not suppose that a more exciting chase was ever witnessed since the old wolf-hunting days.
It may seem strange to many, as it did to me, that foxhounds should chase one of their own breed, but the fact remains that they did so.
ON SOME ODD WAYS OF FISHING
BY THE AUTHOR OF "MOUNTAIN, MEADOW, AND MERE"
The maxim that one half the world does not know how the other half lives may, with slight variation, be applied to the world of sportsmen. The "sportsman" is not of any particular class. The highest in the land and the lowest may rub against each other in the broad field of sport. This is peculiarly true as regards the gentle art. Wandering by the side of an unpreserved stream you may see my lord casting a fly over this shallow; and, twenty yards further down, Tinker Ben seated by the side of a chub hole watching his float circling round in the eddy, and as the noble passes the boor an honest angler's greeting may be interchanged, and a light for the latter's pipe asked for and given. It may be taken as a general rule that between anglers who pursue their sport by fair means there is a levelling freemasonry of the craft which is as pleasant as it is right.
Between the fair fisherman and the poacher, there is, however, a broad line of demarcation—a line which bars the interchange of even the commonest civilities on the mutual ground of pursuing the same object. The fair fisherman hates the man who captures the finny tribe by unfair or illegal means as strongly as a foxhunter hates a foxkiller, or a strict sabbatarian hates a sinner who enjoys a Sunday afternoon's walk and the glimpses of nature it may afford him. There is also a line drawn between the man who fishes for amusement alone and he who fishes for profit. The division in the latter instance may not be so broad as it is in the former, but, nevertheless, it is wide enough to distinctly separate the two classes. Now I think the fair and amateur angler is in a great many instances unaware of the shifts and dodges adopted by the poacher and the pothunter to fill their pockets, and of the consequent hindrance to his own sport. Therefore by way of warning, of information, and possible amusement, I have noted down a few of the more singular instances which have come under my own observation.