510 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



and leisurely on, under the hot sunshine and over the corn- 

 clad fields on which the Craven hunt. Now we were fairly on 

 the Berkshire Downs, where wheat and turnips and soft felt 

 sheepwalks mark their own boundaries, and fences have no 

 place. For miles we travelled thus — the ruling passion e'en 

 in summer asserting itself in contemplation and comment. 

 The Quorn pack, as bought by Mr. Coupland, came from the 

 Craven country — and could hunt. And heavens, what a school 

 ground ! No wonder they could put their noses down — even 

 to leaving no stone unturned for a possible scent beneath it. 

 I' faith, with all deference and respect to the keen sportsmen 

 who make the best of circumstances, I would not eke out my 

 remaining hunting years with the Craven — no, not even were 

 my horses found, and the run of my teeth besides ! Even its 

 roads are gruesome ; and the preparation for winter-metalling 

 ghastly — here a heap of grim blanched lumps resembling 

 nothing but skulls ; here, in the next stage, the flint rocks 

 split into pieces such as would have served the ancient Britons 

 for hatchets and spearheads. With no slight gratulation I 

 remembered that my trapper was shod with stout leather form - 

 ing a flint-proof covering to her sole. Nowhere better than in 

 the milestones was advertised the cutting-power of these 

 razor-edged implements. Every letter and figure had been 

 erased at the hands of stone-throwing urchins — and for all 

 practical purposes, beyond assuring one that a mile is a mile, 

 their use had departed. 



Newbury came as a break : and a well-parked lower country 

 as a change. Thus to Whitchurch — a tiny old-fashioned town 

 through which runs the Test, the queen of trout-streams, and 

 raved of by Charles Kingsley. Afterwards a wet, woful day's 

 drive along the border line of the H H., the Hursley and the 

 Hambledon ; so to the New Forest. 



A wholly different aspect does the Forest now wear to that 

 in springtime — when last we saw the fallow buck hunted under 

 the greenwood shade. Oak and beech, of course, are in heaviest 

 foliage : but what strikes the eye more promptly is the depth 



