214 FOX-BOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



himself also turned into view. But, dodging through a gate- 

 way, he just evaded the gaze of the busy pack, and, as bad luck 

 would have it, next moment he was on dry arable and among 

 flying sheep. Half an hour to this — and he had seemed almost in 

 their mouths. They hunted him on under utmost difficulties till 

 the hour was completed, Guilsborough was nearly reached, and 

 Cottesbrook was shadowed forth across the valley. But thus 

 he saved himself; though the huntsman would not be likely to 

 leave a beaten fox in a free country, while a ray of hope and 

 daylight remained. 



And truly, when the turf is in such order that a good horse 

 goes upon springs, and when a scent is vouchsafed in dusty 

 March, a burst over the green Midlands is a little gift from 

 Paradise. 



WEEDON BARRACKS THE CENTRE. 



This dry sunny spring has at least been a boon to the very 

 best class of our suffering fellow mortals, the farmers. Never, 

 I am told, have they known so apt, and workable, an early 

 spring : and now, if ever they are to experience a turn of the 

 tide, the " good fellows who live by the land " should see the 

 way to getting their own again. I came across a scrap some- 

 where the other day, the truth of which is widely applicable, but 

 in no case more seriously than when the struggle for existence 

 is " on the top of the ground," A.D. 1887 and thereabouts : 



'Tis a very good world, sirs, we live in, 



To spend and to lend and to give in ; 



But to earn and to hold, or to get a man's own, 



'Tis the very worst world, sirs, that ever was known. 



Going to covert was the quickest and the least cheerless part 

 of Friday. If you don't start late and travel consequently in 

 feverish anxiety, which on the strength of various fair trials I 

 am bound to consider the common condition of those who hack 

 upon wheels, driving is " good business " in the dry days of 



