WAFTED FROM A FAIL 387 



they must have been. My ears are surety tingling now with 

 their dainty notes.) Ten miles, from Whistley Wood to Ever- 

 don Village, over the sweetest line the Grafton can map — and 

 for the last ten miles as straight as a bowstring, as far as I 

 make it on memory's chart, having no atlas before me. 



One o'clock saw them at Allithorne Wood. Ten minutes 

 later they were away — for as fine a run as you will find in 

 the chronicles of Wakefield Lawn. Hounds never touched a 

 covert — though they passed many — in the next two hours and 

 more ; and at the end they pulled down as stout a fox as ever 

 did credit to woodland birth. 



The line — slow and crooked to Wappenham, fast and straight 

 by Plumpton, Weedon Bushes, and Canons Ashby to Little 

 Preston. A beaten fox struggled along the valley to Snors- 

 combe, and was run into in the open under Everdon Village — 

 time two hours and ten minutes. Even the best of the horses 

 were more than satisfied, for the ground rode deep indeed, in 

 spite of a week of weather mild and dry ; and to see the run 

 it was necessary to jump a number of fences quite unusual. 

 A field of some seventy or eighty people saw the find at 

 Allithorne. About half of them rode through to the finish. 

 In fact, a goodly proportion saw most of the run — among them 

 notably being Lord Penrhyn, Lords Alfred Fitzroy, South- 

 ampton, Algernon Fitzroy, Capts. Jacobson and Greville, 

 Messrs. Fuller, Gosling, Knightley, &c, &c. And you re- 

 member what an afternoon it was — a day on which you might 

 see and hear and enjoy to the utmost the delightful science 

 of riding to hounds. Bear in mind, too, that these hounds 

 were the Grafton, that the country was such as you might 

 choose for schooling or elect for chasing, that the scent was 

 a working if not actually a brilliant one, that their fox was a 

 type of bold energy — and, tell me, what would you, ur I, not 

 give to have been there ! 



C C 2 



