58 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



story out of their adventures and achievements, and they told 

 it somehow thus — that, after fording the Gaddesby Brook, they 

 were called upon to ride the country foot-path that leads to 

 Queniboro' ; that such foot-paths, with their greasy stiles, are 

 best avoided, but that the high strong hedges on either hand 

 left them no choice. Yet the worthy sportsman whose four- 

 year-old rolled over a rabbit hole, leaving him to take the whole 

 succession on foot, and in orthodoxy, negotiated them with no 

 more comfort than did his comrades. The four-year-old alone ex- 

 tracted boundless fun out of them, taking each in irreproachable 

 form, seizing his turn without jostling, though resolutely declin- 

 ing to be caught for miles. Bv that time weight carriers were 

 beginning to pant and tire ; and narrator assured me it was 

 only excess of delicacy and a superhuman effort of self control 

 that prevented his claiming the runaway, and in exchange 

 leaving his own pumped-out machine tied to a gateway. I 

 leave it to the public to determine if he would have been right. 

 The end would surely have justified the deed, would it not ? 

 But then, as the opportunity came only just before the Queni- 

 boro' Brook, would he have dared to ride the runaway at the 

 water, and risked the fate of Mr. Brocklehurst and Mr. V. H. 

 Barclay — or, meeting it, to have awaited the coming of the 

 strong stranger in boots ? The maxim of riding your friend's 

 horse as you would your own might scarcely have been found 

 to apply, if the friend — totally unprepared — had come upon the 

 apple of his eye cast in the rushes, or only held up from drown- 

 ing by his new bridle. The Queniboro' Brook is another of 

 those deep-cut and erratic streams that ruin our waterjumping 

 in Leicestershire. Here was an instance in point. Capt. Smith 

 struck it where the most resolute of chesnuts that ever looked 

 through a combination of bridles could not possibly have got 

 half way over ; Count Kinsky swept it in a big place ; Mons. 

 Deschamps glided blandly over an extravagant one — the rest 

 trotted through, a few yards away. Fences continued thickly 

 for a quarter of a mile ; then gave way to gates and gaps till 

 three-and-twenty minutes had been scored, and near Barkby 



