468 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



" Ob, everything, till they stopped in the middle of the day for 

 luncheon " he put it — adding, to prove that he had done his 

 duty and to put in a claim to my approval, " I went on in the 

 afternoon too, till the mare couldn't gallop any more." I have 

 only to add of this Pytchley Tuesday that the fox to Winwick 

 Warren beat us last week on the neighbouring ploughs ; and 

 Tuesday afternoon did nothing further, than bid us be thankful 

 for our open Christmastide. 



THE PLACE WHERE THE OLD HORSE DIED. 



Saturday, Dec. 21. — Hunting is not all frolic. Still less is it 

 all smooth sailing, or unbroken reliable gladness. Like all ex- 

 citements, it has its blacker moments — so black that all light is 

 for a while eclipsed, and the sun of existence is temporarily hid. 

 Mere discomfort, such as Friday's, when, wet and cold, we went 

 through the greater part of the day in positive physical pain, is 

 regarded only as variety — as one of the forms in which we elect 

 to take our pleasure. But now and again a blow falls, a cata- 

 strophe steps in that curdles all the milk of happiness we have 

 lately so contentedly swallowed as our natural food. Ah, well, 

 such blows have many degrees of weight, and it is good philo- 

 sophy at all times for the smitten one to straighten his back, 

 and to protest as cheerfully as he may : " It might have been 

 worse." But I defy any man — who is a man — to go to bed 

 without a heartache, under whose knees a favourite horse has 

 that day come to the ground for ever. He may gloss over the 

 pain that he won't acknowledge, while others are there to see 

 and to sympathise (for foxhunting brotherhood is a very kindly 

 tie). He may talk of the fortune of war, of a usual average of 

 one dead horse a season, and of the old hunter having long ago 

 paid for himself. He may even turn with no diminished force 

 to the meal of the evening and to the pleasing distraction of 

 laugh and converse. But he is a harder brute than I am if he 

 does not wake in the night to a vision of the old horse's up- 



