A ROUGH DAY WITH THE GRAFTON. 393 



break up, apparently to ride directly away from hounds? In 

 the clear air methoughtl caught distinctly a brown form flitting 

 across the wide pasture next in front of hounds. They turned 

 to his very footsteps — so I felt comforted. I had viewed their 

 fox, tired, probably, and nearly run to death. So the lump that 

 had choked me while the music was rippling near and while old 

 comrades, all aglow, were lancing across the road, so near I 

 could see their eyes sparkle, gave way to a chuckle of satisfac- 

 tion and a chirrup that started the pony at speed for Maidford 

 Village. Arrived there, it was found that hounds had reached 

 the wood just beyond. Thence they went through Seawoll 

 Wood — some say changed foxes on the way — and ran to ground 

 on the railway embankment by Plumpton Wood. Already the 

 run had lasted for nearly two hours ; and had furnished fun, 

 and enough, for grateful and satisfied sportsmen by the score. 



A ROUGH DAY WITH THE GRAFTON. 



RUDE and boisterous were the elements on Monday last, 

 Feb. 4 ; but if the spell of happy weather had been abruptly 

 broken, the spell of fine sport was by no means yet completed and 

 booked to the past. A "disturbance" had reached us from over 

 the Atlantic ; a polar wind had stepped in to assist in our dis- 

 comfiture ; and forthwith our fickle little island threw aside its 

 make-believe spring, to resume its more seasonable, but far 

 less becoming, garb of winter cold and wild. 



The Grafton met on a lofty ridge — so it seemed to those who 

 rode or drove up to Preston Capes from the Daventry direction, 

 and who in a blinding snowstorm (one of a series that enlivened 

 the day) essayed first to find their hunters, then to mount them. 

 Happy was he — and happy the horse of him — who reached the 

 scene at the latest possible moment ; thus avoiding exposure such 

 as no constitution short of that of the weathercock of Stornoway 

 could hail with any pleasure. The fierce storms, however, were 

 of tolerably brief duration — and possessed only a degree of pene- 



