188 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



Northamptonshire (not even excepting the quick and lengthy- 

 heavy- weight who, from Weedon in years gone by, did such 

 credit to the Flying Horse Artillery and to his own bird- 

 sobriquet).* An enormous white cockatoo, resplendent with 

 yellow head-plume, repeated in his Punch-and-Judy voice as 

 he passed almost overhead, " Good morning, good morning!" 

 Then, leaving his dusky comrades, he perched himself on a 

 tree by the roadside, placidly to watch us as long as we rode in 

 sight. A true bill this — on my word and on that of my dis- 

 interested companion, and bearing at least the likelihood of 

 truth, inasmuch as this curious well-wisher appeared in the 

 form of no after-dinner phantom, but as a wayside apparition 

 to a couple of sober, and somewhat sulky, foxhunters jogging 

 unwillingly to covert, two hours after breakfast and a full hour 

 behind time. 



But all hindrances and all by-the-way interruptions not- 

 withstanding, they were there to add two more particles to the 

 torrent sweeping past Misterton Reedbed after fox and hounds 

 about noon on Wednesday. The road to Lutterworth is a 

 broad one ; but it was filled full for half a mile, and afterwards 

 sprinkled for half an hour to come, with gallopers of every 

 degree. Misterton Hall is a centre spot of fox-preserving that 

 has few equals even in this very hunting shire. If a dozen 

 foxes get into hounds' mouths here during a season, at least 

 two dozen survive on their native ground. Foxes of a certain 

 age have necessarily learned the more distant neighbourhood ; 

 the youngsters are content to remain within call of so good a 

 home. The first fox of Wednesday probably obeyed the 

 instincts of youth, in evincing a shifty reluctance to go far. 

 But the scent was too good, and the Pytchley bitches too 

 quick, to allow him to dally in comfort. He crossed over to 

 the plantation at the northern end of Shawell Wood, touched 

 Cotesbach Village, and, by a very quick forward movement on 

 the part of the huntsman, was brought into view on the banks 

 of the little river Swift. The latter was bridged ; but not so 



* General Greene. 



