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The old dynasty of Houyhnhnms was re-established at Crompton; the Horse bare sway, or was at least held in higher account than the Human. The Horse, the Hound, the Pheasant, the Bag-fox, and, fifthly, Man, were there the gradations of rank; and a compound being half man, half brute was, by a not unparalleled freak of fortune, the master of all.
Kinglake used to say that in conceding the right of the Sultan to exclude any war-flag from the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, Russia was treating Turkey as a bag-fox, to be gently hunted occasionally, but not mangled or killed; and he felt keenly the ridicule resting on the allies, who were compelled to surrender the neutralization purchased at the cost of so much blood and treasure.
Oh, what an enjoyment! That was a make-believe thing, compared with this; there was no surprise, no suspense, no unexpectedness it was as inferior to this wild nutting, as the turning out of a bag-fox is to unearthing the fellow, in the eyes of a staunch foxhunter. Oh, what enjoyment this nut-gathering is!
Watchorn now struck, making for a square plantation, near the first hill-top, where it had been arranged the bag-fox should be shook. It was a fine day, rather brighter perhaps, than sportsmen like, and there was a crispness in the air indicative of frost, but then there is generally a burning scent just before one. So thought Mr.
Button used to say that the term "throw off," which was new to him in that application, haunted him all the way out, like a bad dream. It was a bag-fox day, I believe: that is, the hunt was provided with a trapped animal, brought upon the ground in a sack and let out when the proper time came, a process known in sporting parlance as "shaking a fox."
Jawleyford was a great patron of the chase; and his keeper, Watson, always had a bag-fox ready to turn down when my lord's hounds met there. Jawleyford's covers were never known to be drawn blank. Though they had been shot in the day before, they always held a fox the next if a fox was wanted.
"No," replied Davoren; "he, too, has disappeared; and although he is hunted like a bag-fox, nobody can find either hilt or hair of him." "Might it not be possible that she is with him?" he asked again. "No, Barney," replied her mother, "we know Shawn too well for that. He knows how we loved her, and what we would suffer by her absence.
To add zest to the chase, Clem now let Looney slip as a kind of bag-fox, and the half-witted creature went lumbering and blubbering about in real terror of his life, whilst his pursuers encouraged his speed with artifices in which the animated spinnies and coverts deferentially joined. Unnoticed and lonely in the crowd, Alfred was almost sorry he was not half-witted too.
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