104 THE LIFE OF A FOX.

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 imme-
diately; 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