CONTRASTS. 571 



the mental proviso that they might have mistaken a hawk 

 for a cuckoo. But, being very country-bred and born, I pride 

 myself that I know a hawk not only "from a hand-saw" 

 but from a cuckoo. Many, indeed, has been the summer 

 evening of my boyhood that I have sat in the shade of Shawell 

 Wood, to watch the foxcubs come forth to play, and the cuckoo 

 swelling his throat on the bough above me — so close that I 

 could mark his every feather. And on the present occasion 

 the mottle-grey bird enforced his identity by darting twice 

 in-and-out of the hedge, almost within whip distance — as if to 

 jeer at a man riding in scarlet under a Junetime sun. 



Wednesday, Feb. 25, crept forth from a frost fog again into a 

 bright, almost tropical midday. Indeed, it wanted five minutes 

 to noon when the Pytchley lady pack burst away, with a good 

 fox, from Crick Gorse. Twenty years it put me back at once, 

 to clap eyes on Captain Trotter's familiar back — that I used to 

 toil after through the holes he had bored and the timber he 

 had swept away ; his face, his hat, and his vestment eloquent 

 witnesses, as a rule, of the strength of Northamptonshire and 

 the determination of the Coventry captain. Then, as now (if 

 my dates are right), Lord Spencer would be riding close handy 

 — guarding his pack from pressure, and regulating the torrent, 

 as scarcely another can — with a velvet-gloved hand. And then, 

 as now, Mr. Mills would be riding hard and forward — among 

 his many juniors even then. And then — but no longer now — 

 the pride of position would be held almost invariably by Miss 

 Davy, who for years saw more sport day-by-day than any other 

 of the Pytchley ladies. To-day her place in the front rank was 

 taken by two almost strangers to the Pytchley — the one Mrs. 

 Bunbury, riding with all the accomplished confidence she was 

 wont to exhibit with the Grafton ; the other Miss Tennant, 

 whose sphere is more often Melton. And yet another was 

 sampling Northamptonshire — a lady from the north countrie, 

 Mrs. Fenwick. If they did not see Northamptonshire at its 

 very best, they saw at least what it can be — and often is. 

 A little more pace, and a little less frost in the ground — 



