“Now, Chester, tell us how they go on in thy part of the world, and how thou hast contrived to escape from that famous hunting pack of hounds, which we are told belonged to the late Mr. Codrington. Tell us, moreover, is it a good huntsman they have to hunt them?”
As foxes are scarce in our country, I alone could be found to travel here, and having been hunted only one season, I am, from my own experience, but ill qualified to reply to your question as to the huntsman. I have as yet escaped from being hunted by him, but I do hear that he is in all respects most excellent. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for us, he was lately disabled by the fracture of a bone of his leg; and consequently could not come with the hounds when they hunted the last week in the Namptwich country. For reasons to be given hereafter, I had rarely lain in coverts of late, and had preferred lying in hedgerows. I happened, however, to be lying in a covert one day when I heard the voice of a man who was hunting hounds which turned out to be Mr. White’s, and as they were close to me before I heard them, my only chance was to leave the covert immediately; but in the first field I was met by some men on horseback who frightened me back again. I was not seen by the hounds, which ran out of the wood on my scent as far as I had gone, but were turned back, not without a little loss of time, which was a favourable occurrence for me. I went straight through the wood and away on the opposite side, and soon found that they were after me. I kept on, but not in a straight line, which rather puzzled the gentleman who was hunting them. They came at length to a final check, and could hunt no farther. I thought that if Marden had been hunting them, there was one cast which he would have made, and that was to the left of the field where they lost the scent; for although each of the other sides were tried by casting the hounds that way twice over, they were never taken once round beyond the field to the left; and to this I attribute my escape, for I was nearly beaten, and it appeared that the pack which I found such difficulty in shaking off and defeating by turning so short as I had done during the run, was that which belonged to the late Mr. Codrington. It is stated that they killed every fox that they hunted during eight following weeks. They are said not to be compared for beauty to the former pack, which is reported to have been a magnificent one; but “handsome is that handsome does.”