536 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



saw worn by human being, save on the gallows or at the gun- 

 wheel, the most pitiable was that of a well booted and breeched 

 second horseman, when ordered to give up his mount to his 

 master and to set off afoot to Daventry — there to seek the latter's 

 riderless runaway. It is only fair to add that his master first 

 lightened his load as much as possible by distributing the 

 contents of a sandwich box, the size of an overland trunk, 

 among his circle of friends. But I think I shall long recall 

 that pitiable face, and picture the white-leathered limbs 

 trudging wearily away into the dim distance. 



Their fox was pretty well worked to death before he con- 

 sented again to leave Badby Wood. He then only crawled up 

 to Badby House, and there died — two hours from the find, the 

 intermediate time, as I have described, having been divided 

 between the richly-gated pastures of Fawsley and the muddy 

 mazes of Badby Wood (I refer only to some further bypaths, 

 and am far from intending to cast the faintest aspersion upon 

 one of the most valued and invaluable coverts in the two Hunts). 

 It is rather late to say where our fox was found. (I fancy I 

 have mislaid a page of MS., or perhaps used it to light my last 

 overnight cigar, when I shied away the pen at the welcome 

 promptings of sleep.) But the foxes — two brace of them 

 together — were found late. Not till we reached Charwelton 

 Osierbed, and it was thence that we galloped the gates for our 

 lives, over the wide green domain of the revered house of 

 Knightley. Tis on a miniature scale, the Aylesbury Vale of 

 Northamptonshire. The Grafton lady-pack were in great form, 

 whether darting and twisting over the greensward, or chirping 

 and driving hard round the deep woodland of Badby. There 

 was a sparkling scent. 



Tuesday, Nov. 11th. — The North Warwickshire at Dun- 

 church. The morning came in with a storm that seemed a 

 duplicate of Friday ; but that eased off, with a shift of the 

 wind, till one's wet-weather-kit became superfluous to the eye 

 and distressing to the body. We had a run — a capital run — 

 having only one drawback, on which we will dwell as little as 



