FAWSLEY, A FIRST, AND NOTABLE, EXPERIENCE. 141 



will allow ! Never seek danger till you have somebody else's 

 word for it that it does not exist " (this latter part of the maxim 

 more especially intended for Irish use). And, as for a double 

 fence in Northamptonshire, you may make it a useful maxim, 

 " Not to plunge in at the front door until you have seen some- 

 one else make his way out at the back." 



The vein of sport struck by each and every pack in the 

 Midlands during the ten days preceding Christmas was again 

 hit by the Grafton on Monday, December 21st. The same dark 

 fog in every sense wrapped the day in gloom to the greater por- 

 tion of a large and excellent field. Fortune's favours vary 

 wildly and inscrutably ; and the dog who in fox-hunting snatches 

 one lucky day has assuredly either drawn his blanks very lately 

 or they are ready for him in the immediate future. In each 

 recent misty day of high-class sport there have been a certain 

 number who could congratulate themselves that they were in 

 luck, but a far larger number who were altogether out of it. 

 The morrow would shuffle them round again, and the very men 

 who for sheer vexation scarcely looked at their dinner one 

 evening, returned home almost in rhapsodies the next. Over- 

 night they had moaned out a sulky resolve to " sell every horse 

 in the stable," go abroad, perhaps even take to fishing. To- 

 night the game would be " the only thing worth living for " — 

 "just one more glass, my dear fellow, to Fox-hunting." "By 

 Jove, but my new grey is a real clinker I You'd like a mount 

 on him one of these days, eh ? " And so, no doubt, you would ; 

 but unless you are sharp enough to book date and occasion at 

 once, you are not very likely to find yourself astride that same 

 grey. In vino Veritas happens to be a motto that has little 

 application to such promises as a mount on the best horse in the 

 stable. In vino is a very liberal fellow, with no thought but 

 extending to the friend of his heart the feeling of intense satis- 

 faction in which he himself is revelling ; but Veritas is a colder- 

 blooded individual who walks in next morning with a strong 

 thirst upon him, and possibly with the slightest suspicion of a 

 headache. No benevolence is for the moment so profound as 



