THE LIFE OF A FOX. 119

five hundred yards distance, they were stopped
and taken home, and I narrowly escaped from
one of the most dashing. packs in the kingdom.
It is to be hoped by us in this part, that his
Royal Highness Prince Albert will have his com-
mands obeyed by the keepers in Windsor Forest,
and that this pack of hounds will not be driven
elsewhere to find a fox, I now remained for a
short time in a very thick covert, called Pigeon-
House Coppice, through which I passed when
hunted by the hounds.

There is a tragical story connected with this
covert. The hounds many years since had met,
and the gentlemen were all assembled, when the
keeper who had the care of the coverts made his
appearance, and producing a sack in which there
was a fox, told them that unless they gave him
a certain sum of money for it to turn out and
hunt, he would shoot him before their eyes. This
atrocious threat made them all quite furious,
and they refused to give him any thing; on which
this monster in the shape of man immediately

laid the sack which contained the fox on the