THE BRAUNSTON GALLOP OF THE PYTCHLEY. 311 



wider now, but the pace no less severe. Ridge and furrow, too, 

 was no relief — and, I might have mentioned by way of plea for 

 steeds that early began to sob, many of those racing fences of 

 the Flecknoe neighbourhood had a heavy drop in store, for 

 horses jumping vigorously and landing wide. Besides, was not 

 this to every hunter engaged, his first gallop since the frost ? A 

 shining ox rail garnished one of the last hedges before the 

 Shuckburgh-and-Staverton road. Mr. Adamthwaite's little 

 brown rose sharp and flippantly as the spur went in twice to 

 the final stride; Mr. Foster chose double-timber, and left it 

 behind him undisturbed ; but Mr. Cunard's good mare only 

 saved herself by a clever in-and-out. Her bolt was all but 

 shot, and two minutes later her head was resting plaintively on 

 a ditch bank. Refusal was the fate of the next comer, a heavy 

 fall that of the next — the latter being the lot of one of the 

 oldest members of the Hunt, Mr. Mills, who to-day was riding 

 to hounds with all the quick talent of twenty, or, may be, of 

 twice that number of, years ago — but who was soon back in his 

 saddle, happy and mirthful, and going on with his son. Mrs. 

 Dalgleish and Mrs. Graham made the oxer no easier ; but 

 Capt. Faber served it usefully. Scrambling over bank and 

 weak double, the party left the road for the dingle-broken 

 slopes that form the side-vale to Catesby. Did one of the 

 above gallant officers recognise, I wonder, the first blind water- 

 course — of which he and the black horse of to-day made no 

 shallow survey some seasons ago and before he set off to the 

 land of Pharaoh ? 



You will vote me garrulous ere I've done. But I have you 

 by the buttonhole now, and must have out my say — craving 

 pardon not so much of you but of the good fellows with whose 

 names I am making free. I pretend to no completeness of 

 story : but impressions are by no means as fleeting as the 

 happy moments themselves, and here the}' are — and peopled — 

 as they came to me. 



Now men were crawling in single file over three cramped 

 water-girt hedges marking three deep notches in the grassy 



