GRASS COUNTRIES. 



Season 1889—1890. 



a memorable winter. 



A FLUTTER FROM ALFORD THORNS. 



The Pytchley once again in full flower. Saturday with this 

 pack at Clipston, has left in my brain one of those quick - 

 fleeting memories that I love to rehearse upon paper, that 

 belong to the Shires, and of which my regular readers (if I 

 possess any such) must have had more than their fill during the 

 years in which I have thus caught at incident in its course, and 

 thrown it by handfuls in their long-suffering faces. You are 

 •a fox-hunter — and thus indulgent, you know ; and you love to 

 feel the stir of the chase, the vigour of a ride to hounds. And 

 here is such to be found — I mean not in one Hunt, but where- 

 •ever good grass and honest fences form the basis upon which 

 fox and hounds are called upon to work and men are invited to 

 ride. I'll cut off the beginning of my little tale of to-day, and 

 set you going half a mile from Alfoi'd Thorns, with a bad start, 

 a flying scent, and hounds almost out of sight. The showers of 

 a troubled night have left the grass wet and slippery, for another 

 still, misty day ; and steep, sloping turf, gives you a greasy 

 welcome as you dash into a gully, and take the handgate grate- 

 fully from an old friend * — whose absence from the last month's 

 gallops has been as the loss of an eye to the prow of a junk 

 (simile more fitting than elegant). " Fresh as a bridegroom 

 is he ; and you feel more at home as you mark his shoulders go 



* Mr. Gordon Cunard. 



