316 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



great grazing pastures that your stray scribbler had never 

 seen before — though now content to live in earnest hope of 

 seeing many a time again. The pack was at its fastest, and 

 so were the crowd of men — yet spread with half a mile of 

 front, and dotting the broad acres as across the width of 

 Fernley's old canvases. Sweeping down the gentle green 

 slope, they covered the scene with varied a.ction delightful to 

 mark — for you could see right, left, and in front, to take in 

 a spread of life and vigour seldom coloured in a single view. 

 The pack were dotted on the farther slope, as men came 

 twenty abreast over the ant-hilly field, culminating in the 

 boundary hedge of the valley beneath. Messrs. Foster, 

 Wroughton, Cunard, Pender, Sir Saville Crossley, Captain 

 Middleton, Mr. Sheriffe, the Master and Mr. F. Langham, 

 Messrs. Murietta, Stirling-Stuart, Schwabe, Bishop, Mills ('pere 

 ■et fits 2), Sanders, and the huntsman of course, with his men ; 

 and others besides. Short Wood had been left half a mile to 

 the right ; Mawsley Wood was the prominent point, and thither 

 hounds gained at every yard — as they will do on a burning 

 scent where the fences are a quarter of a mile apart. Crossing 

 the road just to the right of the wood, they proved the scent 

 more determinedly than ever. The leading couples had a ten- 

 length advantage in leaving the lane. The others could never 

 touch them for a mile — though the little Pytchley ladies are as 

 evenly paced as a coach team, and never tail nor string. And 

 though they ran the very hedgeside, not even a road rider could 

 live the pace with them — till they turned into the lane again, 

 to enter Old Poor's Gorse, a rough patch of furze and common. 

 {Twelve minutes to this point.) 



The chase now left the straight line and bent back to the 

 right (I must follow geography as closely as I can — to fix a 

 nearly ten mile run within a five mile point — and all within a 

 forty-seven minutes' timing). The country here was close 

 inclosure, where the plough had been freely used. But they 

 drove on hard to Faxton Village, hit the grass again, while the 

 plot thickened, and we were all " well in it " — and found our- 



