FOXHUNTING IN EARNEST. 189 



a deep-cut second dyke on the nearer side. Hemmed and 

 pressed, the field were huddled in almost laughable helplessness 

 on its brink. Horses would not face its uglv insignificance. 

 Four were eventually got over: but as — amid the vain medley 

 of whacking, spurring and whispered enunciation — I failed to 

 recognize all but one rider, a very gallant and valued friend, I 

 am compelled to refrain from the liberty of specifying the 

 quartette who alone saw, properly and deservedly, the best and 

 final quarter-hour of this run. I should add that the bottom of 

 this watercourse was in most places a sound gravel, and it was in 

 fact a very easy kind of " rhene." But these vaunted hunters 

 of the shires were in most cases superior either to jumping or 

 fording it. A Grafton lady alone succeeded in insisting suc- 

 cessfully on the latter : though I believe that there are two 

 or three very angry men riding up and down the drain still. 

 They seemed at any rate to have taken up permanent quarters 

 therein, when I for one left for the night exhausted by useless 

 effort. This quarter of an hour was by Bitteswell Village 

 round Lutterworth ; and we were all — i.e., not less than two 

 hundred and fifty of us — present when Reynard was pulled 

 down about a mile from the little town in question — the chase 

 having taken just about an hour. 



Longer by thirty or forty minutes was the hunt of the after- 

 noon, after a fox of somewhat similar initiatory tastes, but still 

 more strongly acted upon by the vigorous compulsion of hounds 

 and huntsman. Misterton Gorse was his home, and he took a 

 complete circle nearly round the manor before consenting to 

 go abroad. On the first supposition that a straightaway gallop 

 was mapped out for them, more men than I have ever seen 

 tempting each other on to encounter a very undeniable peril 

 (if my too timorous view of things is at all worth credence), 

 went one and all for a double stile through the narrow planta- 

 tion above the covert. It is true that the second timber was 

 only visible when the first had been accomplished (which by 

 the way was necessarily into the gaunt arms of an overhanging 

 chestnut tree). It is true also that the same chestnut tree quite 



