286 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



Cunard on the brown and Capt. Middleton on one of his greys 

 carry the front just now. The men of the Kennel are exactly 

 where they should be ; and, as " over to the right, sharp through 

 the bullfinch to the left " is enacted, Mr. Jameson on that 

 wonderful bay mare, Mr. Harford on his little brown, take up 

 the running in turn with Mr. De Trafford (I am taking unusual 

 liberties with names — and please I must do — to illustrate the 

 momentary, shadowy, glimpses of this queer dream gallop). 

 Broken vale and upland is now our lot, as hounds swing right- 

 ward still from Cottesbrook (they had hitherto apparently aimed 

 for that district or Maid well), and bend round for Guilsborough 

 or West Haddon. The turn favours some, while discounting the 

 advantage of others. But the last scene of any width, that 

 lingers in memory, previous to the falling of the close thick cur- 

 tain, contains a complete reproduction of what I have seen fifty 

 times before, and hope I may yet see fifty times again — a 

 portrait picture that is scarce ever away from a Pytchley 

 Wednesday. For, besides those on whose names I have already 

 seized, there are Mr. Foster, Mr. Pender, Capt. Soames, Mr. 

 Muntz, Major Cosmo Little — I was all but adding two other 

 accustomed leaders and treasured comrades unawares, but they 

 are no doubt hovering somewhere close at hand in the darkness. 

 I am safe, however, from contradiction or mistake in substitut- 

 ing Mr. Rose — and I can put no name to half a dozen more 

 shadowy forms. Goodall keeps his foghorn loudly sounding, 

 and we plunge after him into the night with a feeling that we 

 must cling to him or collapse. Why, here is a turnpike road 

 again — and guarded here by an oxrail we remember well. 

 Surely Ave have seen it twice before in the two past seasons, as 

 we rode the other way from Elkington and the Hemplow ? John 

 shows us how we may double the rail, and to him we owe direc- 

 tion as we leave the road and ride onward into blank space. An 

 old man is cutting a hedge : and his face of astonishment and 

 alarm as the phalanx gallops on to him is as out of an old Dutch 

 painting, in its dim, red, roundness. Of course he has turned 

 the fox ; and the latter must have run almost against him with- 



