mself, and with him the accursed hum of a
musquitoe--and hark! hush!--what was that?--was it? By Heavens! it was
the deep note of a fox-hound! Aye! there comes Harry's cheer, faintly
heard, swelling up the breeze.

"Have at him, there! Ha-a-ve at him, good lads!"

Again! again! those are the musical deep voices of the slow hounds! They
have a dash in them of the old Southern breed! And now! there goes the
yell! the quick sharp yelping rally of those two high-bred bitches. By
heaven! they must be viewing him! How the woods ring and crash!

"Together hark! Together hark! Together! For-ra-ard, good lads, get
for-a-ard! Hya-a-araway!"

Well halloaed, Harry! I could swear to that last screech, out of ten
thousand, though it is near ten years since I last heard it! But
heavens! how they press him! Hang it! there goes a shot--the squire has
fired at him, as he tried the earths! Now, if he have but missed him,
and Pan, the god of hunters, send it so, he has no chance but to try the
open.

By Jove he has! he must have missed! for Bonny Belle and Blossom are
raving half a mile this side of him already. And now Tom sees him--how
quietly he steals up to the fence. There! he has fired! and all our
sport is up! No! no! he waves his hat and points this way! Can he have
missed? No! he has got a fox!--he lifts it out by the brush--there must
have been two, then, on foot together. He has done it well to get that
he has killed away, or they would have stopped on him!

Hush! the leaves rustle here beside me, with a quick patter--the twigs
crackle--it is he! Move not! not for your life, Peacock! There! he has
broken cover fairly! Now he is half across the field! he stops to
listen! Ah! he will head again. No! no! that crash, when they came upon
the warm blood, has decided him--away he goes, with his brush high, and
its white tag brandished in the sunshine--now I may halloa him away.

"Whoop! gone awa-ay! whoop!"

I was answered on the instant by Harry's quick--"Hark holloa! get
awa-ay! to him hark! to him hark! hark holloa!"

Most glorious Artemis, what heaven-stirring music! And yet there are but
poor six couple; the scent must be as hot as fire, for every hound seems
to have twenty tongues, and every leaf an hundred echoes! How the boughs
crash again! Lo! they are here! Bonny Belle leading--head and stern up,
with a quick panting yelp! Blossom, and Dangerous, and Dauntless
scarcely a length behind her, striving together, neck an