172 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



We see, perhaps, all we can from a respectful and timorous 

 distance ; but the main part of our fun lies in the relation we 

 can maintain with other riders — holder, maybe, and better and 

 younger than ourselves. And much enjoyment and much merri- 

 ment we get by the way, except when the flock splits up and 

 Ave follow the sillier sheep instead of the wiser ones, to find 

 ourselves in that most lamentable of all states — clean out 

 of it. 



Saturday, Oct. 23, brought " on our side of the country " 

 (wherever that may be) the occasion of the first big field of the 

 half-hatched season— and, though the ditches looked little dif- 

 ferent from what the haymakers may have found and left them 

 some four months ago, and the hedges were giant in their robes 

 of green, somehow the public took ready heart, and, as it were, 

 impelled one another to view a good deal of what came in the 

 way at about its proper value. Now and again, while all others 

 were at a halt, or groped hither and thither in despair, a meteor 

 would shoot forth from the darkness, and — lancing forward as if 

 bent on self-sacrifice for the common weal — would cleave a way 

 through timber or bullfinch, to release the huddled mob. And 

 as often as not, I noticed, this was no drag hunt exotic or 

 steeplechase darter, but some grizzled old fox-hunter familiar in 

 the white-collared livery. It did the heart good and it warmed 

 the too sluggish pulse to see such feats : for it shows that the 

 fire of the chase is no ephemeral flame. Where were we ? 

 With the Pytchley — I had almost forgotten to say ; for my 

 thoughts were harking to a wide caverned oxer, and to the far- 

 set rail that scarce yielded to a clean and clever pair of heels — 

 yet remained quite big enough. In an aged book of Tales 

 styling itself An Oriental Collection, that it was my privilege 

 to read but a week ago, occurred in every few paragraphs the 

 pleading, "but this history must be abbreviated, lest the reader 

 get an headache " (a formula that I must remember and repeat 

 in the prolific future). So I need write only of the day that 

 there were foxes enough in the Dodford neighbourhood ; and 

 that twice hounds circled for twenty minutes over that pleasant 



