A BROKEN RECORD. 385 



enjoyed the protection of an oat-sack apiece round their 

 shoulders (like many of their attendants on foot) they would at 

 all events have carried a look of preparedness. The honest 

 sacking- was altogether more suggestive of warmth than 

 the scarlet " extra superfine " which clung - coldly to shivering 

 shoulders. However, if there was no great sport, there was, 

 happily, constant movement taking place — and the day was 

 thus made just endurable. 



About this point I may come upon the scene in the light of a 

 tenant farmer, who, by reason of the custom of the country — 

 and influenced, possibly, b}^ the fact that my landlord is a fox- 

 hunter — am fain to put up with the passage of a crowd of 

 horsemen across my holding. Is there not a popular little 

 handbook " My Farm of 20 Acres and how I made it Pay ? " 

 I have not yet perused it, nor do I believe it will enable me 

 to solve the question so far as my tenancy is concerned ; at any 

 rate the system of farming will have to be on very new lines, 

 and the cow and the foal must speedily give place to some more 

 paying class of stock. No, I must move with the times. First 

 of all, my landlord shall mend all my fences for me, lest I string 

 him or his friends up upon barbed wire, like so many eels on a 

 nightline. Secondby, he shall find me a complete new^set of 

 gates that open to a hunting crop, and swing to the latch of 

 their own accord. Thirdly, as I am about to buy some hens, I 

 shall require at once a substantial advance from the Hunt 

 poultry fund. Fourthly, and this on the word of a freeborn 

 Briton, no man shall ever again ride through my garden, 

 hounds not running hard, unless he stop to drink, whether I 

 be there or not. Under these conditions, and subject to such 

 other claims as I may from time to time have occasion to bring 

 forward, as, for instance, due regard to my arrangements for 

 shooting over the estate, will I lay 20 acres of sound turf at the 

 feet of the Pytchley Hunt 



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