GRAFTON AH A IX— THAT USELESS RAILWAY. 2G9 



GRAFTON AGAIX—THAT USELESS RAILWAY. 



Again my song, or sorry prose, is of the Grafton triumphs. 

 Friday, Dec. 2, was replete with sport from noon till dark — 

 the items being (1) a half-hour's burst — straight and furious, 

 over the best line in their varied country — to ground ; (2) a 

 sharp thirty-five minutes' ring from Charwelton osier bed — 

 finishing with blood in the open ; (3) a quick and excellent 

 hunt of some fifty minutes. 



But it is with the first that I have particularly to deal — as 

 containing the pith and excitement of the day. It dated 

 from Canons Ashby, the charming feudal seat of Sir Henry 

 Dryden, who, though no longer taking active part in the field, 

 provides constant sport from his well-kept coverts for the 

 Grafton hounds and their following. 



The day was bright, cool, and sunny — " gaudy " in fact — and 

 the wind was in the west (whence, if I have not been over and 

 over again deceived by the weathercocks of Northamptonshire 

 and Leicestershire alike, it very often blows when scent and 

 sport are in the air. Huntsmen say otherwise, and hate a west 

 wind ; so steeple and stable, gilt chanticleer and golden fox, 

 have no doubt combined to deceive me). But Friday w r as a 

 lovely day — to see, to hear, to live — and withal to hunt, if 

 things should go right. That they did not go right with every- 

 one, the railway must bear the blame — as I will endeavour to 

 convey. You must know that a line of rail, carrying but very 

 few passengers, and none too many goods, was made some years 

 ago from Blisworth to Stratford-on-Avon, with a view to demon- 

 strating to casual travellers how sweet a valley runs across the 

 heart of the Grafton and Warwickshire countries. Though the 

 public fail to avail themselves in any numbers of the means of 

 sight-seeing thus afforded, the railway still exists as a proof of 

 enterprise, and in full possession of a vale that had far better 

 been left for the untrammelled use of fox and hounds and of 

 men who would ride after them. This railway, then, cuts 



