374 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



And another of the same sort as Friday's was the Pytchley 

 gallop of Wednesday, Nov. 28. Two sharper bursts will not 

 belong to the season — let it even proceed with the happy energy 

 with which it has begun. Yelvertoft Hill- side gave us Wednes- 

 day's stirring episode ; and the scene was carried over the rough 

 gorges of Elkington, the steep highlands of Cold Ashby, and 

 finally the strong vale of Naseby — as fast and severe a twenty 

 minutes as ever was ridden, and afterwards they killed their 

 fox. 



I need not go back to the morning, beyond saying that we 

 had been disappointed at Crick for want of a fox, and at 

 Lilbourne for want of scent. But by middle day, the first 

 rime-frost of the winter had melted away, the earth was warm, 

 the air was still, and we were very hopeful. But the tension 

 and excitement that belong to a first five minutes had to 

 be undergone for nothing- — -when we started from beneath 

 the covert beyond the canal bank. Our fox was headed home 

 by drain-diggers ; and sullen and sad we slunk back to 

 the upper covert. There was nothing here, though, to 

 hold him long : already the little ladies were warming the 

 oven : and a new anxiety arose, lest a chop should be served 

 for our midday dish. Now he leapt through their very midst, 

 squirmed and wriggled as he passed their snapping jaws, and 

 for dear life raced for the handgate by the canal bridge. 

 Crossing the bridge he had not ten yards in his favour, and 

 for a mile along the canal side there were six couple straining 

 for a mouthful of his blood-red fur. Twenty men scattered 

 over the bridge among the tail-hounds. Two hundred others 

 thundered down the cart track in their wake. Goodall, and 

 we within, extricated ourselves as best we might from the 

 entanglement of rabbit -netting and rail-guarded handgate ; 

 and now I have the picture before me- — a rough and narrow 

 green field sprinkled with scurrying horsemen — a struggling 

 chain of hounds hurrying to their leaders — a gate ahead, and 

 for an obvious and only course another gate and another 

 bridge, which the chase must cross to reach Elkington or the 



