314 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



chanced to career past the penman, and so caught his view. 

 For instance, the friend he missed in the fog of the Thornby 

 gallop, Mr. Wroughton — Captain Fitzwilliam, Count Larische, 

 Mr. Darby, Lord Henry Paulet, and Mr. Schwabe — also Mr. 

 Henley, Mr. Close, Mr. Burton, Mr. and Mrs. Philips. But I 

 dare attempt no full enumeration. I would merely venture the 

 query to Lord Spencer and Sir Rainald Knightley (both in a 

 position to give a verdict of to-day) — was not this almost as. 

 worthy a gallop as any in the Pytchley History ? 



Surely the number of hunting days has never been so small 

 as in the winter of '87-88 — the proportion of sport perhaps, 

 never so great, in the counties of Northampton and Warwick. 



THE BLUE COVERT BURST. 



More of the Pytchley — and this in closest sequence with my 

 last voluminous record. 



It is of Saturday I would speak, the final day of this mar- 

 vellous March — broken, as it has been, by frost and snow- 

 storm, but bedecked with such sport as we have not seen for 

 years. The Pytchley have had brilliant runs, or at least good 

 runs, on nearly every day that weather has allowed them out 

 of kennel. They have been fairly spoiling us. Nothing like 

 it has happened in the Shires for five years — and, believe me, 

 strangers, nothing of the kind is likely to happen again for 

 another such cycle. So you need not think to cluster like 

 bees round a honey-pot. The pot is not dry, but its contents 

 may not be dished with the same flavour after a summer's 

 keeping. You remember the Quorn record, the Cottesmore 

 blaze, the Bicester furore, and the Pytchley craze — all within 

 the last decade \ And you know how these passed away for 

 a lontr while. Don't come to the Grass Countries — at least 

 unless you mean to stand a five years' trial, pay your house 

 tax to the county, and buy your forage of the farmers. So 

 say the sages, and so sing I the chorus. 



