A WEEK WITH SIX PACKS. 531 



rain drove against the panes like spray against a fo'castle port 

 — shutting out from view even the dense black clouds drifting 

 inland from the Atlantic. (Unconsciously one's thoughts 

 recurred to that stormy pathway, and one's sympathies went 

 forth to " those in peril on the sea.") But a wetting on dry 

 land, if a paradox, is no great hardship, and as for being blown 

 about, are there not living men — said to be sane withal — who 

 keep private ships (at the cost of a pack of hounds, forsooth ! ) 

 to ensure themselves that very luxury ? * Not a nice day for 

 hunting, doubtless. But what would you do at home ? — knock 

 off all your letters by one o'clock, eat an ill-earned and exagger- 

 ated luncheon afterwards, then, perhaps, smoke yourself silly, 

 and lounge about grumbling — or not impossibly, swearing — at 

 the weather, a prey to " undisciplined inaction," " and the frivo- 

 lous work of polished idleness." A rough-and-tumble with the 

 elements, in a tarpaulin kit — or something as much akin to it 

 as civilisation will permit — is surely better than this ? 



Of course it was, by rights, a Shuckburgh hurricane, and 

 should have come twenty-four hours earlier. But it happened 

 to be late for the meet, and fell foul of the Atherstone. So 

 yesterday the wholly unaccustomed spectacle was to be wit- 

 nessed — of huntsman and field listening placidly on Shuck- 

 burgh Hill, while every hound note floated distinctly to the 

 summit. And thus it was only last night that my after-dinner 

 musing took the form of reflection upon the absolute advan- 

 tages of foxhunting as a soothing refreshing process, tending 

 more to invigoration and clear appreciation of life than all the 

 German waters, or all the tonics of home pharmacy — or even 

 the most Spartan regimen of diet and training. The frame is 

 never more fit, or the brain less burdened with cobwebs, than 

 after day-to-day hunting — stipulated always that long railway 

 journeys or ultra-Meltonian dinners are not superadded to the 

 day's work. Fairly good living is essential, for mind's and body's 

 sake alike. Sybaritism is antagonistic, and will knock away the 



* Needless to say tins was written previous to news of the sad incidents of the 

 storm in question. 



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