155 



CHAPTEE XYIIL 



WITH THE GRAFTON. 



It is not because I have no memories of smart gallops 

 with this well-known pack that I prefer to recall a 

 run of the other sort — a long and severe one, trying 

 both to horse and man. It so happens, however, that 

 my old diaries record more than one of this latter 

 kind. Such were the two Mondays within a month 

 when the meet on each occasion was at Adstone. 

 Each time, too, we had a run of less than an hour in 

 the morning. On both occasions the run began at two, 

 the first ending with "Whoo-whoop! gone to ground," 

 at Maidford at four-thirty. But of this I can only 

 claim to have been '* in" the first half, owing to want 

 of condition in my second horse — a new one. On the 

 second we ran fast for an hour and ^yq minutes, and 

 then checked and probably changed foxes. In ten 

 minutes we were running again, and ran on till the 

 fox fairly ran us out of scent a little to the south 

 of Morton Pinkney. This run was also two hours 

 and a half 



Then there was the time when, after a hot and 

 uninteresting day in the woodlands of Yardley Chase, 

 we got away in the evening with a game old dog-fox, 

 who led us a pretty dance, over baked and dusty 



