450 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



the reawakening to a fitting tune. They had met at Maidford ; 

 and, after minor episode, had set a ringing fox to ground with 

 an hour's work — while men and women freely bestrewed the 

 half-thawed earth, and half-a-day satisfied half the field. Then 

 ensued an hour's real gallop, the better of which they will 

 scarcely see this } r ear. They found their fox in Tite's Copse — 

 the staunch little planting by Blakesley — and towards the 

 latter village he broke as the only way open to make his way 

 over the pastures to Brad den — scent and pace all that could 

 be wished ; fences few and gates many. An angel in disguise 

 of corduroy and smock drove him back from the too customary 

 earths by the hamlet ; and hounds' heads were now to the 

 south-west, whence last night's charm had brought the wind. 

 So they improved occasion and even pace, till some hock-deep 

 arable held them lingering a moment, then leaving Tite's Copse 

 just on the right, they entered upon a sharp succession of wild 

 grassfields through which their fox might have bestridden a 

 galloping hack, so amiably did the gates come, while the pack 

 tore on for Weedon Bushes. Beneath this lies a brook, lightly 

 fenced, snow-swollen now, and not badly bridged. But there is 

 one among us to whose thirsty soul such cool waters are as 

 " glad tidings from a distant land." So he dipped in, but rose 

 refreshed, to reappear at next occasion of a hungry flood. We, 

 meanwhile, had risen the brow — Apthorpe's village spire now 

 prominent on our left — crossed another road, and had gone 

 westward still, more rapidly than even emigration's flow. A 

 miniature field had remained, or the little gates had been 

 choked. Hitherto it had been nearly all galloping and gate- 

 shoving — proficiency in which double duty (no mean capability 

 either) has been said to be as of the arm and whip, rather than 

 as of the heart and spur. This matters not. It was a gay 

 gallop ; and had the devil been offered the hindmost, he could 

 scarcely have poached on the foremost. 



Thus up the valley, past Weedon Bushes and 'twixt Weston 

 and Wappenham, where we struck a brook at its angle. Some 

 three men went straight on, to accept the swollen difficulty as 



