CHAPTER XXVII 



Winter in the Shires 



have been writing of winter sports and pleasures 

 to be followed for choice among the frost and 

 snow ; but, oddly enough, the winter sport par ex- 

 cellence of the English gentleman comes to a stand-still 

 in our genuine winter weather. A frost is not un- 

 welcome to the fox-hunter in the spring and after an 

 open season, when he has well-nigh ridden his horses to 

 a standstill, and half his stud is gone on the sick-list. 

 But frost in November or December, when the winter 

 is young and hopes are fresh ! It is certainly not 

 quite so trying as it used to be in the days of the 

 mail-coaches and post-chaises, when the hunting man 

 in the Midlands was practically storm-bound in the 

 streets of a dull provincial town ; when the sole 

 resources were over-eating and hard drinking, the 

 billiards by day, the rubber by night, and smoking 

 countless cigars in the stables in dismal contemplation 

 of the hocks of the steeds. Now a man takes his ticket 

 to town by express train, and while he finds a 

 sympathetic chorus of growlers in his club in St. 



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