Whenever the foxhounds ran a fox to Aldington
he was always lost near the brookside, and it was said that the
cunning beast eluded the hounds by mounting a pollard and jumping from
one to another, until the scent was dissipated. It was also a
tradition that when hunting began on the Cotswolds the experienced
foxes left for the Vale, leaving the less crafty to fight it out with
the hounds; for the Evesham district was seldom visited by the hunt,
owing to possible damage to the highly cultivated winter crops of the
market-gardeners.
Jarge had a very narrow escape when grubbing out an old willow
overhanging a pool. He had been at work some hours, and had a deep
trench dug out all round the tree, to attack the roots with a
stock-axe. He had cut them all through except the tough tap-root, when
I reached him, and he was standing in the trench at work upon it. He
was certain that it would be some time before the tree fell, the
tap-root being very large; but, as I stood watching on the ground
above, I thought I saw a suspicious tremor pass over the tree, and an
instant later I was certain it was coming down. I shouted to him to
get out of the trench. It took a second or two to get clear, as the
trench was deep, and he was not a tall man, so he was scarcely out
when the tree fell with a crash on the exact spot where he had been at
work.
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