THE BATTLE GROUND OF NASEBY. 471 



out a happy Christmastide, and seeing the Old Year out with 

 honour and satisfaction. 



Naseby Covert is a great thorn thicket planted on the deep 

 clay that dragged down the war-worn horses of the Cavaliers, and 

 did more to place a Royal neck beneath the heel of Demos and 

 beneath the cruel axe than aught else in the career of the 

 rebellion. But it was only the pleasantest image of a fight 

 that was to be enacted to-day ; and I will unravel its somewhat 

 tangled threads as quickly and as lucidly as in me lies. Our 

 fox was first driven back by a crowd of footpeople ; but 

 10 minutes later he found a rift through their midst, and by 

 some means or other made good his dash for liberty. And now 

 we were carried past the village of Naseby by such garden and 

 suburb route as a wily determined fox would choose. Soon 

 we were riding on, scent freshening, adown the dells and 

 gorsey dingles that pave the way to the rough hogs- back of 

 Purser's Hill, and rounding its extreme right corner found 

 ourselves creeping rapidly along its wooded summit to the left 

 and east. Taking the greener slope of the Cottesbroke aspect, 

 we rode fast to an easy line and a fast running pack, past the 

 hillside coverts of Blueberry, &c, nearly to Berrydale ; then 

 bent still more leftward for the best of the pace and the best 

 of the run. Even on the red ploughs, scent was excellent 

 in the cold easterly wind ; and as the pack dipped into the 

 rough, and usually scentless, hollow of Maidwell Dale, it 

 became necessaiy to edge carefully on, if one would not miss 

 the dart and delight of the next quarter hour. Lord Spencer, 

 Messrs. Jameson, Wroughton, Harford, Muntz, Hanbury and 

 Mills (pere), and some half-dozen others, were far too well on 

 the alert to be slipped (a fate that temporarily befell a number 

 of good men at this period), and these former jumping quickly 

 from the cart road of the arable to the free turf on their left 

 hand, were soon over the hill and the road twixt Scotland 

 Wood and Hazlebeech — to plunge downward again with the 

 screaming pack over the sweet-scenting pastures to Tally-ho 

 Covert. 



