he quaint, old-fashioned little hound,
and in every line of his face. As for his music--who would expect such a
deep, bell-like note from this queer midget among hunters, standing not
much higher than the second button of the huntsman's legging? Withal, he
is a merry, lively little fellow, with a good nose for the scent of a
rabbit or a hare, and, when in fit condition, is able to follow, follow,
follow, if needed, from earliest dawn till the coming of night. The
chase being ended, he with his companions, Harlequin and Columbine, and
all the stragglers of the panting pack, will surround the tired hare,
and will wait, bellowing lustily, but without molesting the quarry, till
the Master appears and calls them to heel.

If the ten to twenty sportsmen often to be found in a village would
combine, each keeping a basset for the common Hunt, they might derive
the utmost pleasure from following their pets afield, and incidentally
would assist to prevent the extermination of an innocent wildling of our
fields and woodlands. For the sake of the sport shown by the
basset-hounds, many of the farmers near the villages, who dearly love to
hear the deep music of a pack in full cry, would protect Puss from those
more cunning and powerful enemies of hers, who, lurcher in leash or gun
in hand, steal along the hedgerows at nightfall, so that, from a secret
transaction thereafter with some local game-dealer, they may get the
wherewithal for a carouse in the kitchen of the "Blossom" or the "Bunch
of Grapes."

One morning in December, when the rime lay thick on the fields, and the
unclouded sun, rising in the steel-blue sky, cast a radiance over the
glittering countryside, our village basset-hounds found the "cold" scent
of the hare in the woods above the church, where Puss had sheltered
beside a prostrate pine-trunk before returning to her "form" at dawn.
After endeavouring in vain for some time to discover the direction of
her "run," they set off, "checking" occasionally, across the stubble,
through the root-crop field, and down over the fallow to the bottom of
the dingle. There, near a bubbling spring, Puss had hidden since
daybreak. Hearing the far-off music, she slipped out of the field
unobserved, till, reaching the uplands, she was seen to pass leisurely
by in the direction of the furze-brake.

Directly the bassets came to the spring, a chorus of deep sounds
announced that the quarry had been tracked to her recent lair. All
through