FOXHUNTING IN EARNEST. 185 



Meanwhile, November is hardly a winter month — though an 

 early spell of frost has too often set in before the date on which 

 the printer's devil shall handle this trifling. I would not waste 

 your time — after the fashion of the little handgate at Braunston 

 Gorse that frittered the precious moments for a swollen troop 

 striving and squeezing. Sand through a minute-measure ; Her 

 Majesty's faithful servants doing homage at a Leve'e; a magnum 

 of champagne dealt out in liqueur glasses — are all similes natural 

 but wholly insufficient, to convey a notion of the fight between 

 self-control and the aggravation of delay, such as attends the 

 progress of a Pytchley, or other "too-many-by-half" field, 

 through a handgate at starting. And all the squeeze led this 

 time to little or nothing. The " scented zephyr " of the hunts- 

 man blows for most from the East. It must be specially so for 

 the good man whose office it is to exhibit to the best advantage 

 the show of the shop, Braunston Gorse — though the antithesis 

 may be appropriate when his Lordship views the same vale 

 from Shuckburgh's entrancing heights. The wind now came 

 directly from the valley ; and Reynard obeyed the prompting 

 as readily and unhesitatingly as the world accepts ill tiding. 

 By Bragboro', to lose at Ashby St. Ledgers Park, was the run 

 from Braunston — given under circumstances of some little 

 jumping, no little nice hunting, and a waning scent. But the 

 lesson of an otherwise uneventful ride was provided on reaching 

 Ashby St. Ledgers Park, at the hands of Mr. Goodman of 

 Catesby — as sturdy a yeoman as ever bred a bullock or made a 

 hunter. Objecting to locked gates on principle, as being 

 incompatible with the due co-operation of foxhunters and 

 farmers, he turned his four-year-old short round ; and, ignoring 

 the hesitating throng now clustering at the gate, lifted him 

 over some five feet of ghastly timber next to the latch-post. 

 Offer me a dukedom, or a pack in a grass country free of all 

 cost (the latter for choice) — I would have hung my head and 

 slunk round, whatever my mount, rather than followed him. 

 The plain moral of such bold proceeding was obvious enough. 

 Foxhunters are in a great degree dependent upon farmers. But 



