The hounds, with the majority of the field, having effected the descent of the hills, were now trotting on in the valley below, sufficiently near, however, to allow our hill party full view of their proceedings.  After drawing a couple of osier-beds blank, they assumed a line parallel to the hills, and moved on to a wood of about ten acres, the west end of which terminated in a natural gorse.  “They’ll find there to a certainty,” said Mr. Jorrocks, pulling a telescope out of his breeches’ pocket, and adjusting the sight.  “Never saw it blank but once, and that was the werry day the commercial panic of twenty-five commenced.—­I remember making an entry in my ledger when I got home to that effect.  Humph!” continued he, looking through the glass, “they are through the wood, though, without a challenge.—­Now, my booys, push him out of the gorse!  Let’s see vot you’re made of.—­There goes the first ’ound in.—­It’s Galloper, I believe.—­I can almost see the bag of shot round his neck.—­Now they all follow.—­One—­two—­three—­four—­five—­all together, my beauties!  Oh, vot a sight!  Peckham’s cap’s in the air, and it’s a find, by heavens!” Mr. Jorrocks is right.—­The southerly wind wafts up the fading notes of the “Huntsman’s Chorus” in Der Frieschutz and confirms the fact.—­Jorrocks is in ecstasies.—­“Now,” said he, clawing up his breeches (for he dispenses with the article of braces when out hunting), “that’s what I calls fine.  Oh, beautiful! beautiful!—­Now, follow me if you please, and if yon gentleman in drab does not shoot the fox, he will be on the hills before long.”  Away they scampered along the top of the ridge, with a complete view of the operations below.  At length Jorrocks stopped, and pulling the telescope out, began making an observation.  “There he is, at last,” cried he, “just crossed the corner of yon green field—­now he creeps through the hedge by the fir-tree, and is in the fallow one.  Yet, stay—­that’s no fox—­it’s a hare:  and yet Tom Hills makes straight for the spot—­and did you hear that loud tally-ho?  Oh! gentlemen, gentlemen, we shall be laughed to scorn—­what can they be doing—­see, they take up the scent, and the whole pack have joined in chorus.  Great heavens, it’s no more a fox than I am!—­No more brush than a badger!  Oh, dear! oh, dear! that I should live to see my old friends, the Surrey fox’ounds, ’unt hare, and that too in the presence of a stranger.”  The animal made direct for the hills—­whatever it was, the hounds were on good terms with it, and got away in good form.  The sight was splendid—­all the field got well off, nor between the cover and the hills was there sufficient space for tailing.  A little elderly gentleman, in a pepper-and-salt coat, led the way gallantly—­then came the scarlets—­then the darks—­and then the fustian-clad countrymen.  Jorrocks was in a shocking state, and rolled along the hill-tops, almost frantic.  The field reached the bottom, and the foremost commenced the steep ascent.