He now shows to the front, and old Tom, who is still 'F--o--o--r--rarding' to his hounds, either rather falls back to the field or the field draws upon him.

At all events they get together somehow.

A belt of Scotch fir plantation, with a stiffish fence on each side, tries their mettle and the stoutness of their hats: crash they get through it, the noise they make among the thorns and rotten branches resembling the outburst of a fire.

Several gentlemen here decline under cover of the trees.
'F--o--o--r--rard!' screams old Tom, as he dives through the stiff fence and lands in the field outside the plantation.

He might have saved his breath, for the hounds were beating him as it was.