harmony.

Goodness gracious! what's up? Our horse, which has never refused before,
has stopped dead at a wall. We stand up in the stirrups and peep over,
and there below us is a narrow but deep quarry, a veritable death trap
for the unwary sportsman. This is indeed a merciful escape; and how can
we be too thankful that a horse--wise, sagacious animal that he is--has
been endowed with an extraordinary instinct whereby he can _smell_
danger, even though he cannot see it. Writing of this--one of the
numerous escapes a merciful dispensation of Providence has granted us in
the hunting field--we are reminded that no less than five good men and
true have been killed suddenly with the V.W.H. hounds during the last
eighteen years. The list commences with George Whyte Melville, prince of
hunting men, who broke his neck in a ploughed field in 1878. And it is a
very remarkable fact that Mr. Noel Smith was killed in 1896, on
precisely the same day--viz., the first Thursday of December--as that on
which Whyte Melville lost his life eighteen years before.

But soon after crossing a road, hounds suddenly check. After casting
themselves beautifully forward right-and left-handed until they have
completed a half circle, they throw up their heads and look round for
the huntsman. By a sort of instinct, the result of previous observation,
the foremost riders anticipated that check, and did not follow hounds
over the road, though one or two later arrivals press forward rather too
eagerly. The huntsman, who is not far off, seeing at a glance that there
is no other cause for checking, as the hounds are in the middle of a
large grass field, immediately decides that the fox has turned sharp
down wind (he has been running up wind all the way), and casts his
hounds left-handed and back towards the lane without much delay.

"And now," to quote from Mr. Madden's "Diary of Master William Silence,"
"may be seen the advantage of a good character honestly won." Crusty is
busy "feathering" down the road, and as he is an absolutely reliable
hound, the rest of the pack are not long in coming back to him, and
soon, cheered by their huntsman, they are in full cry again.

Our fox has run the road for a quarter of a mile. This manoeuvre has
probably saved his life, for it has given him time to get his breath
back. In addition to this, the instant Reynard turned down wind the
scent changed from a very good one to a most indifferent one. How often
this happens