180 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



are products of our native soil that more fairly than aught else 

 may claim all the benefit of free trade. Yet it is not for me to 

 trumpet forth their merits here — an' I would live. There are 

 grass countries besides those that are accessible only by half a 

 day's journey from the great village ; and there are more and 

 wilder foxes in small natural woods than where the little gorse 

 coverts must be drawn almost weekly. But I would be neither 

 traitor nor turncoat — so no more of odious comparison. 



After all, the Grafton did not give rank to Monday, Nov. I r 

 as their opening day; but a good day's killing was achieved. 

 Besides, in the case of many horses and no few men, an extra 

 and lengthy day's preparation such as this could not but be pro- 

 ductive of benefit. Plenty of us are called upon to buy more 

 than one horse at the very last moment. We can buy the 

 animal (no difficulty at all, I assure you, in the Midlands, where 

 every second man has a large supply on hand with which to- 

 suit all customers), but we can't buy condition. (No, don't 

 contradict me, sir, I know your horses have been doing " no end 

 of slow work all summer," but you can't afford to have them 

 fine-drawn, and you know you don't keep them long enough to- 

 have them hard as well as big.) Now, if we drop into a gallop- 

 with one that is soft — are the chances much more than even 

 against that horse knocking himself to pieces for the season ? 

 With a recent purchase (no matter whence) a Jong day's- 

 dawdling and a few sharp canters can only be fraught with 

 good. And again, we have not all been trying young ones in 

 Ireland, or even enjoying a weekly bump round the riding 

 school throughout the summer. The bread of idleness, or even 

 the hard-earned dainties of a Avell provided shooting lodge, are- 

 in their different way and degree anything but good preparation 

 for the saddle and for the exactions of a covertside toilet. 

 Absolute inactivity of course produces a frame that is only fit 

 for filling a lounge ; but even sturdy pedestrianism fails to 

 mould, or in other words to attenuate, to the elegancies of the 

 pio-skin. A stalwart deerstalker, I warrant, suffers as a rule- 

 more severely when he shifts from knickerbocker and worsted 



