462 



FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



and broken its guard-rail. Terrible confusion, some language, 

 and some delay the steeplechaser made, I am told. And all 

 came together at the railway crossing or after the next fifty 

 acres, when hounds hovered a few seconds at the first whole- 



some oxer. (I never forget a fence, I must interpolate. I can 

 go back to this fence for one of my very earliest reminiscences 

 — and still see Charles Payn, Captain English, Rev. W. Benn, 

 and Mr. R. Fell owes, all taking it in their stride, but everyone 

 leaving a pair of hind legs behind him. For, unaltered to this 

 day, it has its first ditch, its hedge and ox-rail, and then its 

 second ditch. Yet I saw no loose horses thereat this afternoon, 

 for the timber broke honestly, after Mr. Goodwin and his bay 

 rnare had left it intact, and the farther ditch was well cattle- 

 poached. For Heaven's sake don't clean it out, my lord, against 

 our next coming !) The following fence, if I remember right, 

 was very much akin ; but the rail only yielded to the weight of 

 threescore years and a short-backed sorrel. (How these fathers 

 of families forget their responsibilities, when hounds really run, 



