ONLOOKER ABROAD AND AT HOME. 69 



fogeyism, are ten times more in keeping with true enjoyment 

 of sport and the maintenance of nerve and verve than all the 

 pleasant excitement of competitive dinners and delightful 

 company. And this is an opinion that would seem to be 

 gaining ground day by day. 



ONLOOKER ABROAD AND AT HOME. 



The Bicester country was new and pleasant ground that 

 Brooksby essayed to break in company with former comrades 

 and fresh acquaintance. But a pinion that is no use in the 

 work of flight is not likely to bring any but a draggled quill to 

 do its part with fact or fancy. As it happened, the sport, 

 though very enjoyable, was scarcely that of a sample day, any 

 more than the country crossed was the pick of the Bicester. 

 Onlooker saw enough to bear out all he had heard. He could 

 not but be struck with the effect so obviously produced by the 

 last two seasons' prominent success. The light of sport can 

 never be hid under a bushel ; and the Bicester Hunt has 

 acquired a fame that brings its own reward — in a field that 

 rivals Leicestershire or Cheshire. Sixty or seventy horsemen 

 were, I am told, wont to compose the field when the Bicester 

 hounds were stealing their way into a stream of sport— and 

 fame. Now the computation must be made in hundreds 

 Bicester, Buckingham, Brackley, Banbury, Winslow, each is 

 becoming a little metropolis. The characteristics of a country 

 are not to be acquired in a day, or even in a week ; but I think 

 I am right in saying that there is far more room for a crowd 

 with the Bicester than there is with either Quorn, Cottesmore, 

 or Pytchley. For with the first, though the fences are often 

 strong they are seldom totally unjumpable in all but a single 

 place ; and the flood of horsemen is not nearly so often pent in 

 at gap or gate. I take it too — subject to all correction — that 

 though you may be called upon to fall quite as often (up to 

 Christmas twice as often) in the Bicester as in the other 



