FOX-HUNTING 



cover, which he is pointing for ; and in ten minutes, or less, 

 the brook appears in view. It is even with its banks, and as 



" Smooth glides the water where the brook is deep," 



its deepness was pretty certain to be fathomed. *' Yooi, over 

 he goes ! " holloas the Squire, as he perceives Joker and Jewell 

 plunging into the stream, and Red-rose shaking herself on the 

 opposite bank. Seven men, out of thirteen, take it in their 

 stride ; three stop short, their horses refusing the first time, 

 but come well over the second ; and three find themselves in 

 the middle of it. The gallant Frank Forester is among the 

 latter ; and having been requested that morning to wear a 

 friend's new red coat, to take off the gloss and glare of the 

 shop, he accomplishes the task to perfection in the bluish- 

 black mud of the Whissendine, only then subsiding after a 

 three days' flood. " Who is that under his horse in the brook ? " 

 inquires that good sportsman and fine rider, Mr. Green of 

 Rolleston, whose noted old mare had just skimmed over the 

 water like a swallow on a summer's evening. " It 's Middleton 

 Biddulph," says one. " Pardon me," cries Mr. Middleton 

 Biddulph ; " Middleton Biddulph is here, and here he means 

 to be ! " " Only Dick Christian," answers Lord Forester, 

 " and it is nothing new to him." ^ " But he '11 be drowned," 

 exclaims Lord Kinnaird. " I shouldn't wonder," observes 

 Mr. William Coke. But the pace is too good to inquire. 



The fox does his best to escape : he threads hedgerows, tries 

 the out-buildings of a farm-house, and once turns so short as 

 nearly to run his foil ; but — the perfection of the thing — the 

 hounds turn shorter than he does, as much as to say — die you 

 shall. The pace has been awful for the last twenty minutes. 

 Three horses are blown to a stand-still, and few are going at 

 their ease. " Out upon this great carcase of mine ! no horse 

 that was ever foaled can live under it at this pace, and over 

 this country," says one of the best of the welter-weights, as 



^ ' Talk of tumbles ! I have had eleven in one day down there [Melton] when I was 

 above seventy.' — Dick Christian's Lectures, see Post and Paddock by 'The Druid. 



15 



