Edith Somerville

In the vine country Edith Somerville

It was our first day's cub-hunting, and things had been going against us from the outset. To begin with, we had started rather late, -it is noticeable that the minutes between five and six A. M. are fewer and closer together than they are at any other period of the day, -and, when half way to the meet we found that Betty had given way to her sporting proclivities, and had surreptitiously followed us. When it is explained that Betty is a St. Bernard puppy of cart-horse dimensions, whose expression of smiling imbecility only cloaks a will of iron, it will be understood that there was trouble before us. The trouble began at once. Directly she saw she was discovered she ran away, and the next time we saw her she was three fields ahead of us, lumbering cheerfully into covert at the heels of the hounds, pursued by several cows and the curses of the master. By the time that she had been caught and immured in the bedroom of the nearest cottage, we were covered with confusion and blazing with heat, and while we were precariously scrambling on to our horses' backs by the help of the pigstye door, we were told by an excited old man that the hounds had found, and were 'firing away like the divil' out of the far side of the wood