WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS. 391 



It is easy to understand that if hounds follow a figure of 8, and 

 intersecting roads are only frequent and convenient enough, 

 they need seldom be long out of sight of those who would save 

 distance and pace on the macadam. So it was now — the better 

 for me, and the better for all second horsemen, worth their salt. 

 I should be sorry to hint that any of these belted squires do not 

 attain to so meagre a valuation ; but then, whereas a proper 

 second horseman is acknowledged to be worth his very weight 

 in gold, we know not to what price the Salt Syndicate may 

 shortly raise the humbler article. And indeed the worthies in 

 question do vary considerably in point of excellence. One of 

 these days we shall see them all marshalled under authority, 

 and moved by road from point to point — or they will have to 

 be left at home altogether — or they will have to carry a 

 special licence bought from the administrators of the Damage 

 Fund. 



Monday's was an excellent hunt, in spite of its curly course 

 — nay, it probably afforded ten times the amusement it would 

 have done had it been all straight, or even all fast. It contained 

 beautiful, and continuous, hound work that could be seen by 

 everyone, at times and at most times — at times by him who 

 drove the inner line ; at most times by all who would keep 

 galloping on, taking advantage of inside turns or riding reli- 

 giously to the pack. There was no discomposing wind ; there 

 was no blinding sun. The note of hounds, or the happy 

 scream of the hedge-cutter, the ploughman, or of the villager 

 " doing his bit o' hunting afoot " — and each of whom was 

 privileged in turn to view the red rover as he passed — were 

 plainly to be heard a mile away, while at double that distance 

 horses could be easily discerned rising at their fences, and the 

 work of the glancing pack could readily be followed. As the 

 most poetical of modern prose writers and of modern sports- 

 men wrote, it was a dav that in England's winter " means a 

 green and grateful earth ; a sky of dappled clouds, serene and 

 motionless, edged here and there with gold ; a sleeping frag- 

 rance of vitality only waiting for the spring." It was a day 



