384 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



vilLage smith under your orders and owner's permission). You 

 will meet, I warrant you, with unvarying courtesy and seldom a 

 refusal. And you may be saving your best friend's neck in one 

 parish, while he is doing the same by you in another. 



On Saturday the Pytchley battled the snowstorm, brought off 

 their meet at Daventry, and pursued the foxes of the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood under all the drawbacks of cold, damp, 

 discomfort, and semi-darkness. An excellent day's sport it was 

 — for the shoemaker of Daventry or for the cripple in a 

 carriage. And you, therefore, hale and well-mounted reader, 

 may turn the page over, an you please. Not a single boot, I 

 trow, was built in Daventry that day. The sons of leather left 

 their last, tied their dusky aprons round their waists, hitched a 

 bootlace to the collars of their cur dogs, and set forth in force to 

 see the fun at Braunston Gorse. Whether their over-keenness 

 here cost them their sport I am not in a position to aver. But 

 certain it is, hounds could find no fox ; and the shoemakers had 

 to foot it further afield. They had ample sport yet, though — 

 as far as they were able to witness it through the blinding 

 snowflakes. For even if they failed to reach the crown of 

 Staverton Hill before fox and hounds left at score — they either 

 came up to the hunt awaiting them, where the game was to 

 ground, in a road drain by Badby House, or five minutes later 

 they came face to face with the whole outfit careering back 

 over the fields towards Braunston Gorse. 



Nor am I, unfortunately, in a position to declare whose was 

 the valiant terrier that shot reynard out from under the road. 

 I hope, though, it was no aristocrat's dog, but rather one of the 

 true Mont St. Crispin breed, of which there were a score of 

 specimens at hand — of sizes to fit every calibre of drain or 

 tunnel-pipe. Yes, and from the standpoint of wheels, too, 

 this was a goodly run. The fox unearthed led off for a mile or 

 two, within easy view from the road, and then in some fashion 

 or other reserved himself for another day — while the snow- 

 flecked cavalcade moved off to seek a fresh start. Of all 

 comfortless days this was surely the very worst. Had men 



