The Major meanwhile, all energy and enthusiasm, rides gallantly forward, for though he is no great hand among the enclosures, he makes a good fight in the hills, especially when, as now, he knows every yard of the country. Many’s the towl he’s had over it, though to look at his excited face one would think this was his first hunt. He’ll now “bet half-a-crown they kill her!” He’ll “bet a guinea they kill her!” He’ll “bet a fi-pun note they kill her!” He’ll “bet half the national debt they kill her!” as Dainty, and Lovely, and Bustler, after dwelling and hesitating over some rushy ground, at length proclaim the scent beyond.
Away they all sweep like the careering wind. On follow the field in glorious excitement. A flock of black-faced sheep next foil the ground—sheep as wild, if not wilder, than the animal the hounds are pursuing. We often think, when we see these strong-scented animals scouring the country, that a good beast of chase has been overlooked for the stag. Why shouldn’t an old wiry black-faced tup, with his wild sparkling eyes and spiral horns, afford as good a run as a home-fed deer? Start the tup in his own rough region, and we will be bound to say he will give the hounds and their followers a scramble. The Major now denounces the flying flock—“Oh, those nasty muttons!” exclaims he, “bags of bone rather, for they won’t be meat these five years. Wonder how any sane people can cultivate such animals.”
The hounds hunt well through the difficulty, or the Major would have been more savage still. On they go, yapping and towling, and howling as before, the Major’s confidence in a kill increasing at every stride.
The terror-striking shouts that greeted poor puss’s exit from the bush, have had the effect as well of driving her out of her country as of pressing her beyond her strength; and she has no sooner succeeded in placing what she hopes is a comfortable distance between herself and her pursuers, than she again has recourse to those tricks with which nature has so plentifully endowed her. Sinking the hill she makes for the little enclosed allotments below, and electing a bare fallow—bare, except in the matter of whicken grass—she steals quietly in, and commences her performances on the least verdant part of it.