WINTER IN THE SHIRES 333 



should there be a find, and should the numerous field 

 get fairly away with their fox, a wise man will do well 

 to take a line of his own, though at the chance of having 

 to face some extra fencing. A crush in a lane or a 

 cannon in a gap, may possibly entail awkward conse- 

 quences. 



One of the show meets of the season is a character- 

 istically English spectacle, which must impress the 

 intelligent foreigner who desires to study our manners 

 or to pass our choicer horse-flesh in review. In a good 

 country, whether in the shires or the provinces, he will 

 see as high-bred hunters as money can procure ; while 

 some of the hacks and the pairs in phaetons and double 

 dog-carts, are models of symmetry and style after their 

 kinds. He will be struck by clean-built thoroughbreds 

 that look smaller than they are till he comes to see them 

 extending themselves over formidable fences, and laying 

 the wide-stretching enclosures behind them in their 

 stride. He will admire the serviceable animals that 

 carry those substantial farmers, who manage to see a 

 sufficiency of the sport though they stick for the most 

 part to gates and lanes ; and transfusing their intelli- 

 gence into the instinct of the fox, ride knowingly to 

 points rather than on the sterns of the pack. And he 

 will understand the universal enthusiasm for the sport 

 when he marks how the rag-tag and bobtail turn out 

 for the fun from the market-towns, the villages, and the 

 solitary hamlets, mounted upon anything, down to 

 broken-kneed ponies and ragged-coated donkeys fed on 

 furze. But our article lies rather in the snow and on 



