530 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



life's best elixir, of life's happiest distraction, of life's pith and 

 kernel, say some. Contradict them according to your bent. 

 Not for me is it to gainsay their words or scoff at their frenzy. 

 Heart and soul, in precept and in practice, I am with them, 

 until the good green turf shall be my coverlet, as it has 

 ofttimes been my bed and my unfailing friend. Make the 

 most of your opportunity mesdames et messieurs. But do not 

 all patronise the same shop. Distribute your custom, or the 

 goods will go up in price while declining in quality ; and even 

 the shopmen will hint that there are too many of you, averring 

 they " have only enough to supply their home customers " (a 

 principle that by no means expresses the spirit of foxhunting). 



A WEEK WITH SIX PACKS. 



In the full swing of hunting at last — not even time to skim 

 the morning paper. Sport day by day with one pack or 

 another. You ma}', or may not, have been with the right one 

 daily. But, taking your turn fairly, you must surely have 

 shared in much that was cheery and pleasant, something that 

 was exciting and satisfying. For my part, I have endeavoured 

 to carry out a not altogether irksome duty, by hunting six 

 consecutive (week) days with six different packs — within road 

 distance and in, perhaps, the best country of each. Gratefully 

 I tender my thanks to the six kindly Masters ; and in all 

 humility I offer my diary of the other five days. 



Friday, Nov. 7, the Atherstone at Coton House, the roughest 

 morning on which I have seen hounds take the field since the 

 great gale of Oct. 9, somewhere early in the eighties. Horses 

 would scarcely face it, with your road to covert lying up the wind ; 

 and it must have been pitiless work getting back to Atherstone 

 against the storm. Yet both Mrs. and Miss Oakeley braved it 

 — putting to shame many featherbed sportsmen living much 

 closer to the scene. I grant that the early outlook was not 

 tempting, if one's bedroom window faced the north-west, for the 



