GHIMNIED AND CORNERED. 583 



having- a wide turn to make, ere dropped on his track. Plate- 

 layers on the line pointed the route, aud further information 

 from ploughmen and others helped over the ploughs to Maid- 

 ford. We need not dwell — as hounds were obliged. It was 

 only after leaving Maidford Village on their right rear — and 

 turning almost up the wind — that the run warmed up to life. 

 Then they found themselves on sweet turf, and then they found 

 a scent. Threading the Maidford Brook they went faster every 

 field up the valley, as they passed opposite Little Preston and 

 pointed for Ganderton Wood. Beneath Preston Capes they 

 swung upwards over the brow, then plunged, with the wind, on 

 to the Fawsley domain and its great acreage of pasturage and 

 gateage. Church Wood and Hogstaffe were left just to the 

 right, and the chase swept on heartily to Fawsley House and 

 through its laurels. On the grass, hounds were at top speed. 

 On the arid ploughs previously, they had proved their drive by 

 pushing forward of themselves even where they could scarce 

 own a line. For us, we were now in clover — on the old 

 herbage of Fawsley — for we were widespread enough not to 

 get in each others' way, but had almost a gate apiece. Nor at 

 any time during the run was it to any extent necessary to call 

 upon joints, sinews — or nerves — over an obdurate country. 



But we are great gallopers in Northamptonshire : and so here 

 we were, big and little, male and female, all at best pace, all 

 wound up to hottest excitement, all bent upon being " in at the 

 death." And, as we swooped tumultuously into the last dip, 

 short of Badby Wood, death seemed surely nigh at hand. For 

 there was a big fox toiling up the ascent — scarce three hundred 

 yards before hounds — and coming back to them yard by yard. 

 But the frightened deer came athwart the trail ; and the big 

 herd stood in stupid wonder in the very path of the pack. 

 Music was quickly going again, as hounds were thrown into the 

 wood ; and through its hollow depths they rattled fiercely — 

 while it was easy to ride through the leafless covert close in their 

 wake. March and April are the months for the merry woods ! ) 

 Unhesitatingly they drove their fox through breadth — and half 



