GROSS COUNTRY ONCE MORE. 405 



run begins from a covert-side or when we have all cried out 

 that we are now ready. Even then, you may add, we are most 

 of us to be found riding after coat-tails rather than at the tail 

 of the pack. And this is the fortune of war in the Midlands. 

 Believe me, sirs, you will find that hunting here is a very over- 

 rated amusement. There isn't room. So say those who should 

 know ; and Unlimited Emigration hither is to be discouraged. 

 On the other hand, so many people have brothers, sisters, 

 cousins — and, I was nearly adding, sweethearts, but that 

 wouldn't be true — resident in the country, whom they must 

 perforce come and see. It may be that the visit is only for a 

 day, but for that day they must bring a horse — or what attrac- 

 tion can the visit offer ? As well trip it to a grouse moor with- 

 out a gun. The reasoning is false, of course ; but it is a vein 

 of reasoning that has been acted on for many a generation : 

 and ephemeral visitors there will be, especially in spring time, 

 so long as hunting is welcomed, and whether their hosts own 

 the land, farm the land, or pay their footing handsomely. But 

 " on the other hand," with which apology the above sentence 

 began, is a gate to a field of argument far too wide. As well 

 ask me to explain the Elysium of upper servitude as contained 

 in the phrase " settle down and take a quiet public," or to sug- 

 gest privacy and perfection of sport as embodied in " hunting a 

 quiet pack of harriers " in a boot-making district. No need to 

 continue the subject. It is under debate elsewhere — and that 

 debate a very solemn one. 



My sketch of Tuesday had only reached the little hand gate 

 beneath Mr. Muntz's spinney — a point at which some of the 

 big concourse may be struggling still, so insufficiently did the 

 meagre exit serve, when horn and scream were calling them 

 through. A fox that had been seen to enter the covert at day- 

 light was now away whence he came ; and the lively lady pack 

 wasted no time in darting after him. Sharp, varmint, little 

 hounds are these — and very level withal. Wanting, of course, 

 in the grand reach and classic forehand of the Grafton of 

 yesterday ; but very neat, very active, and very keen. Mr. Lort 



