THE SOUTHEKN MIDLANDS. 



SEASON 1885—86. 



FAWSLEY, A FIRST, AND NOTABLE, 

 EXPERIENCE. 



Fawsley, of whose manor and characteristics I have written 

 elsewhere. — A mile consists usually of three bullock pastures and 

 three double hedgerows. Of the latter, one may offer pretty 

 practice — pop in and pop out, over low stake-and-bound and 

 ditch. No horse could well do wrong with it, and each of us 

 might fairly imagine, as we left it behind, that at last we were 

 riding something " quite out of the common." But the next 

 two, like a river to swim, may be comparatively easy to get into, 

 but puzzling indeed to get out of. The process of imprison- 

 ment midway is not altogether a term of happiness. It may 

 mean a thorn in your eye, a hat off, a stirrup lost, your horse 

 veering hard a-starboard and steering at full speed up mid- 

 stream, or all these pleasing contretemps happening together. 

 Then we wish ourselves at home, or at least, that we had not 

 been so ambitious. " Take a lead and keep it," is a text upon 

 which the right sermon has never to my knowledge been built. 

 The only fit and proper expounding should be — Follow a safe 

 man, but only so close at his heels as will ensure three things — 

 (1) That he shall have no excuse for turning round and shouting 

 savagely, " Room, Sir, room, if you please ! " (2) If he be too 

 gentle to protest on his own behalf, that his widow should have 

 no claim upon you if he falls and you alight on his ribs. (3) 

 That you have time to turn aside and choose another safe man, 

 if the first one jumps a too big or too hazardous place. In 

 other words, the text should read, " Take a safe pilot, and 

 follow him as long as your calculations as to personal peril 



