200 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



open weeks have resulted in confining rather than expanding 

 aspiration. 



If I hunt two days a week, it makes me sad to see Smith and 

 Jones pass my door with colours flying on a third morning, 

 which is as a matter of course of the most perfect hunting type, 

 whereas my lot has been cast on two wild profitless days 

 altogether devoid of sport or pleasure. If I hunt three days, 

 hounds are pretty certain to come rollicking across the neigh- 

 bouring meadows when I am tamely taking heel and toe 

 exercise on the afternoon of the fourth day. If I eke out four 

 days, it is certain I miss the best run of the week on the fifth. 

 Five days round home inevitably lead to one's turning to Brad- 

 shaw for a hint as to the possibility of acquiring a sixth. Give 

 me six days — and I would gladly re-arrange the calendar, that 

 June and July might set the church-bells going thrice a week, 

 and the wardens be thus relieved from their expensive and not 

 invariably successful efforts to put warmth into frozen flooring- 

 stones. 



How excruciating, to change the subject, is the chill conveyed 

 by stirrup irons of English make and custom, on such bitter cold 

 days as we have encountered of late ! A thin boot and a bright 

 steel stirrup in a North East wind will, I undertake to say, 

 inflict pain almost as acute as the bastinado (a form of retribu- 

 tion, however, only known to me at present by hearsay). But I 

 can speak from some personal experience of the fact, that in 

 excessively cold climates a wooden stirrup is actually a guard 

 against cold where an iron one would inevitably entail frostbite. 

 I see there are stirrups advertised as lined with rubber. Some 

 of you have doubtless tried them — and their experience might 

 possibly convey a boon to the " tenderfoot." For my part, I 

 intend at once to commit myself to the extravagance of a pair, 

 to be used on such days as the iron fox over the stable has his 

 nose to the north. But as of all the terrors that appeal vividly 

 to my craven soul none comes home with greater force than 

 the dread of being " hung up," those rubberlined stirrups shall 

 be worn only on a safety stirrup-bar. 



