366 FOX-HOU.ND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



choose his way — which he did by dodging in the Daventry and 

 Byfield road, and enabling us all to ride over his line on the 

 turnpike. But, this being set right, a smart twenty-five 

 minutes ensued. They ran a circle and they mopped him up — 

 grass throughout and mostly gates. (The first five minutes, by 

 the way, showed us fairly how we ought to have ridden the 

 finish of the great Braunston run of last season. We ought to 

 have stuck to hounds that day, nor deserted them for a bridle 

 path. And they beat us. Isn't it always so ? Why, the line 

 was an easy one — even for beaten horses.) To-day we went a 

 wide sweep towards Charwelton, gated it happily through the 

 fierce doubles of Fawsley, met an in-and-out at the turnpike 

 road, circled past Charwelton's gorsy hillside, and completed 

 a tour of the Fawsley home lordship with a who-whoop in a 

 double hedgerow. Scent was holding ; pace was fast ; and it 

 was just the gallop for the breaking of the ice. 



Now w r e were up in our stirrups ; had jumped a fence on fair 

 soft turf ; and had galloped our blood aglee. 



Staverton Wood for the afternoon. Here they grow larch 

 and bracken — good covert for fox in November, and where fox 

 can do as he likes while the bracken lives. So a turn up the 

 hillside wood, and a turn back again. Then a scramble o'er 

 the apple summit of the queer eminence that overlooks all 

 Warwickshire and half Northamptonshire — and away to the 

 piping of the little ladies. (I don't mean the crackling cadence 

 of the dames of the cottage on the hilltop — who, rightly 

 enough, bade us " go arter the fox, sir, he's dipped to the 

 garden.") We slipped and slithered downwards, trod the new- 

 dug garden shamefully — and looked, askance. For it was yet a 

 drop, a sturdy stake-and-bound, and on to very hard turf in the 

 dim depth. But come ye from High Leicestershire — to be stayed 

 by such paltry dread ? A dip, and a drop, and a groan besides ; 

 he lands with a quiver, and on he rides. " Not for sale, sir ; " 

 but kept for his good qualities — as in the days that are gone, 

 when the best performers out of all Melton would seldom have 

 passed the vet. Turn to your left, for a dart over the clean-cut 



