THE LIFE OF A FOX. 85

was the difference. I lay in a favourite covert
called Short Wood, when I was startled by another
voice instead of old Ben’s, that of the new hunts-
man, Treadwell’s, clear and beautiful—not so
powerful as that which I had been used to of late,
nor was it “vox et preterea nihil ;” for his system
was one which soon made me give up listening,
when the hounds were pursuing. I found that I
had now no longer time to wait and hang about
as I had done. I was obliged to get away as fast
as I could, and had enough to do to escape from
the new man, whose coolness and perseverance
frightened me. My first escape was owing to
an imperfect cast which he made when the
hounds had come to a check in a field, where
there was a flock of sheep, for instead of taking
the hounds entirely round and close under the
hedge, beginning at the left hand, he missed
that corner for about fifty yards, where it hap-
pened that I had gone through the fence, and
by the time he had taken them close all round
every where else and held them on forward, time

was lost, and the hounds got on the scent exactly