GRIEF WITH THE GRAFTON. 447 



and the first Friday of November with these hounds was cheery 

 in the extreme. The turf is now like a fresh-dipped sponge ; 

 scent hangs richly upon it, and hounds revelled on the green ; 

 wet ground is now a certainty, scent a probability for the open- 

 ing season. Already the middle ride of Plumpton Wood was 

 found with power to put the brake on, as we struggled up its 

 miry length to reach hounds and holloa at the top. We have had 

 many supurb hunting days of late, and into such an one had 

 Friday developed, after dashing storm after storm upon our 

 Avindow-panes, and bidding the cowardly come forth if they 

 dare. The rain swept by, the heavens opened ; we were glad 

 to cast waterproofs to second horsemen, or into a wayside 

 cottage, and the landscape displayed itself so sharp and clear 

 you might have viewed a fox a mile away. There were new- 

 comers of high degree, a field that was bent uj~>on seeing sport, 

 and there was the Grafton ladypack to show it them. High spirits 

 and sound legs prevail in November. The five months' future 

 has a merry look. Who cares to foresee its drawbacks, its 

 difficulties, or its disappointments ? Get away ; hark, hark 1 

 The ladies are gone 



" Where music dwells, 

 Lingering and wandering on as loth to die ; " 



the horn is ringing its sharpest command; and there's no room 

 on my crupper for you, dull care. 



Thus at Plumpton Wood, where were faces new to the 

 Grafton this autumn, to wit — Mr. Walter and Lady Doreen. 

 Long, Mr. and Mrs. Griffith, Messrs. H. Bourke, H. Bull, G. 

 Campbell, Grazebrooke, Macdounald, &c. It was too early 

 in the day for sandwiches ; it ought to have been too early in 

 the season for coffee-housing, and yet more people were left 

 in the wood than went out with hounds. All sorts of things 

 they thus missed. They missed the chance of following a 

 soldiers' lead into a brook, or of bringing on to him his 

 billycock of brown, for which he himself waited not to fish 

 (no such reckless extravagance next week, young sir; the 

 cheapest silk hat costs a guinea). They missed the opportu- 



