the Lynchets, at once hit him off, and the hounds resumed their rush. From this point, they went almost exactly straight from the head of the Danesway to the fir copse by Arthur's Table. All this part of the run being across a rolling grass land, was at top speed, such as no horse could live with. At Arthur's Table, he was put from his earth by shooters who were netting the warren. As he could not get through them nor across the highway, then busy with traffic, He doubled down across the Starvings, where Will, the only man up at this point, although now three hundred yards behind hounds, caught sight of him on the opposite slope, romping away from hounds as though he would never grow old. On coming to the level, past Spinney's End, some of those who had been left at the Lynchets were able to rejoin, but were soon again cast out by the extreme violence of the going, which continued back across the Downs on a line obliquely parallel with his former track though a mile further to the south. It was supposed that he was going for the main earth in Bloody Acre Copse. Some workers in the strip at the edge of the copse headed him from this point. He swung left-handed past Staves acre, and so down to the valley by the shelving ground near Monk's Charwell. Here, for some unaccountable reason, the scent, which had been breast high, became catchy, and hounds lost their fox in the Osier cars at Charwell Springs. Later in the afternoon, while jogging home, a second fox was chopped in Mr. Parsloe's cover at Prince's Charwell. Hounds then went home.

"The run from the Cantlows was not remarkable for any quality of hunting, but extremely so for pace and length. The distance run, from Cantlows Wood to the Osiers cannot have been less than thirteen miles, most of it indeed on the best going in the world, but at a racing pace, with nothing that can be called a check, the whole way. Some wished that the hounds might have been rewarded and others that Will Mynors might have crowned his opening gallop with a kill, but the general feeling was one of satisfaction that so game a fox escaped."

My own interest in fox hunting began at a very early age. I was born in a good hunting country, partly woodland, partly pasture. My home, during my first seven years, was within half a mile of the kennels. I saw hounds on most days of my life. Hounds and hunting filled my imagination. I saw many meets, each as romantic as a circus. The huntsman and whipper-in seemed, then, to be the greatest men in the world, and those mild slaves, the hounds, the loveliest animals.

Often, as a little child, I saw and heard hounds hunting in and near a covert within sight of my old home. Once, when I was, perhaps, five years old, the fox was hunted into our garden, and those glorious beings in scarlet, as well as the hounds, were all about my lairs, like visitants from Paradise. The fox, on this occasion, went through a woodshed and escaped.

Later in my childhood, though I lived less near to the kennels, I was still within a mile of them, and saw hounds frequently at all seasons. In that hunting country, hunting was one of the interests of life; everybody knew about it, loved, followed, watched and discussed it. I went to many meets, and followed many hunts on foot. Each of these occasions is now distinct in my mind, with the colour and intensity of beauty. I saw many foxes starting off upon their runs, with the hounds close behind them. It was then that I learned to admire the ease and beauty of the speed of the fresh fox. That leisurely hurry, which romps away from the hardest trained and swiftest fox hounds without a visible effort, as though the hounds were weighted with lead, is the most lovely motion I have seen in an animal.

No fox was the original of my Reynard, but as I was much in the woods as a boy I saw foxes fairly often, considering that they are night-moving animals. Their grace, beauty, cleverness, and secrecy always thrilled me. Then that kind of grin which the mask wears made me credit them with an almost human humour. I thought the fox a merry devil, though a bloody one. Then he is one against many, who keeps his end up, and lives, often snugly, in spite of the world. The pirate and the nightrider are nothing to the fox, for romance and danger. This way of life of his makes it difficult to observe him in a free state at close quarters.

Once in the early spring in the very early morning, I saw a vixen playing with her cubs in the open space below a beech tree. Once I came upon a big dog-fox in a wheel-wright's yard, and watched him from within a few paces for some minutes. Twice I have watched half-grown cubs stalking rabbits. Twice out hunting, the fox has broken cover within three yards of me. These are the only free foxes which I have seen at close quarters. Foxes are night-moving animals. To know them well one should have cat's eyes and foxes' habits. By the imagination alone can men know foxes.

When I was about halfway through my poem, I found a dead dog-fox in a field near Cumnor Hurst. He was a fine full-grown fox in perfect condition; he must have picked up poison, for he had not been hunted, nor shot. On the pads of this dead fox, I noticed for the first time, the length and strength of a fox's claws.

Some have asked, whether the Ghost Heath Run is founded on any recorded run of any real Hunt. It is not. It is an imaginary run, in a country made up of many different pieces of country, some of them real, some of them imaginary. These real and imaginary fields, woods and brooks are taken as they exist, from Berkshire, where the fox lives, from Herefordshire where he was found, from Trapalanda, Gloucestershire, Buckinghamshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Berkshire, where he ran, from Trapalanda, where he nearly died, and from a wild and beautiful corner in Berkshire where he rests from his run.

Some have asked when the poem was written. It was written between January 1 and May 20, 1919.

Some have asked, whether hunting will soon be abolished. I cannot tell, but I think it unlikely. People do not willingly resign their pleasures; men who breed horses will want to gallop them across country; hunting is a pleasure, as well as an opportunity to gallop; it is also an instinct in man. Some have thought that if "small holdings," that is "produce gardens," intensively cultivated, of about an acre apiece, became common, so that the country became more rigidly enclosed than at present, hunting would be made almost impossible. The small holding is generally the property of the small farmer (like the French cultivateur) who fences permanently with wire and cannot take down the wire during the hunting season, as most English farmers do at present. Small holdings will probably increase in number near towns, but farmers seem agreed that they can never become the national system of farming. The big farm, that can treat the great tract with machines, seems likely to be the farm of the future.

Even if the small holdings system were to prevail, it would hardly prevail over the sporting instincts of the race. Beauty and delight are stronger than the will to work. I am pretty sure that a pack of hounds, coming feathery by, at the heels of a whip's horse, while the field takes station and the huntsman, drawing his horn, prepares to hunt, would shake the resolve of most small holders, digging in their lots with thrift, industry and self-control. And then, if the huntsman were to blow his horn, and the hounds to feather on it and give tongue, and find, and go away at head, I am pretty sure that most of the small holders of this race would follow them. It is in this race to hunt.

I will conclude with a portrait of old Baldy Hill, the earth-stopper, who in the darkness of the early morning gads about on a pony, to "stop" or "put to" all earths, in which a hard-pressed fox might hide. In the poem, he enters when the hunt is about to start, but he is an important figure in a hunting community, and deserves a portrait. He may come here, at the beginning, for Baldy Hill is at the beginning of all fox hunts.