MUGGY MORNINGS. 543 



our backs. No, a warm sun and a hothouse atmosphere are 

 better than these, though we had rather have been habited for 

 the occasion. A cashmere jacket would better have suited 

 either sex for this November — flannel and super-Melton are 

 altogether out of season. We melt under them ; and dwindle, 

 whether we can afford it or not. 



I take Tuesday, Nov. 18th, for my first sample and excellent 

 day's sport, provided for us by Mr. Ashton and the North 

 Warwickshire, almost wholly on the plain of Dunsmoor — a dis- 

 trict that will readily interpret itself as a moorland at the back 

 of Dunchurch. Not that it is by any means moorland nowadays 

 — if it was, as I believe, almost within old man's memory. Its 

 light soil has been ploughed and grass-sown in pretty equal 

 proportions : and arable and turf alike are separated field from 

 field by the deep wide ditches and hazel-covered banks origi- 

 nally employed to drain the waste and to partition its enclosure. 

 These ditches are at the present moment so many bramble-hid 

 graves. But horses, like ourselves, have a keen perception of 

 the awful ; and to-day there were very few falls, though I may 

 safely affirm there was occasion in one hour to jump as many 

 blind ditches as all the rest of the week is likely to insist upon. 

 And Dunsmoor as far as my experience goes (which is that of 

 several Masterships) is very fair scenting ground. Added to 

 which, it is this season exceptionally foxed. 



A morning's drizzle was the prelude to our daily Turkish 

 bath — the latter operation lasting about fifty minutes, and send- 

 ing us home, well-satisfied, before three o'clock — the climax of 

 the process being the steaming tub, from which Phryne herself 

 might step down glowing and ravenous to a hunter's feast. A 

 •thirst that is worth fifty pounds, an appetite that allows no 

 leisure to study a menu, and that menu a befitting one. These 

 may be trifles : but they are the gift of a day's foxhunting — and 

 good sport gives zest and flavour to the whole. 



The meet being at Wolston, the run of the day was from 

 the little covert of Fulhani Wood, adjacent to the Coventry 

 .railway. A blacker fox never showed himself than the furry 



