302 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



last week ! So explained an old friend and farmer, who should 

 know the ways of the varmint if anyone may. Well, Reynard 

 certainly did hurry back, like Mother Hubbard's dog from his 

 empty cupboard : and he took the brookside back, beside the 

 juvenile River Avon, leaving Swinford Old Covert wide. This 

 move made jumping — and, believe me, it was very unwilling 

 jumping. The ditches were underground. The fences (and 

 you may be sure they were picked with every possible view to 

 sober fragility) were best approached with free exercise of whip 

 and spur — weapons that are as often tell-tale of nerve impaired 

 as they are instruments of man dashing and fearless. Hounds 

 ran hard back to Yelvertoft, and hunted to the Hemplow — 

 reaching the nearest point to their find in exactly an hour. (I 

 may take the liberty of adding that to handle hounds under 

 such difficulties was of itself a feat to prove keenness, quickness, 

 and determination beyond praise — name unnecessary.) 



And this was our show day from Hemplow, March 8th, '88. 

 I hope, ladies and gentlemen as follows, your stable report will 

 contain no black entries to-morrow. Mr. and Mrs. Simson, Mr. 

 and Miss Walton, Mr. and Mrs. Graham, Mr. and Miss Judkins, 

 Major Duthie, Capt. Middleton, Count Larische, Capt. Atherton, 

 Messrs. Hazlehurst, Adamthwaite, Leveson-Gower, Guthrie, 

 Jamieson, C. Marriott, Stirling Stuart, Heneage, Ruddock, 

 Bishop, M. Walton, Rhodes, Gebhardt, Hardy, Cross, Elkin, 

 Goodman, L. Gee, J. Gee, Attenbury, Gilbert, Cooper, Smith, 

 Johnson. 



THE WARWICKSHIRE. 



Thursday morning, March 8. — With five minutes in hand, 

 with at least one boot safely mounted, with spurs and gloves 

 ready 'to be snatched, and an hour's margin in which to do the 

 eight miles, I'm safe in " assuming a virtue though I have it 

 not," and pretending to be ready before my time. Hounds are 

 even now on their way to Shuckburgh ; for this is the renewal 

 of existence, the end of a brief bad dream. One horse, or ten 



