22 ON GOING TO COVERT: MERITS 



theme, more than a suspicion of poetry leavened his 

 delightful prose : — 



" What freshness in the smell of the saturated pastures ! What 

 beauty in the softened tints and shadows of the landscape — leafless 

 though it be ! How those bare hedges seem ready to burst forth in 

 the bloom of spring, and the distant woods on the horizon melt into 

 the sky as softly as in the hot haze of a July noon I The thud of 

 our horse's hoofs strikes pleasantly on the ear, as we canter over the 

 undulating pastures, swinging back the hand-gates with a dexterity only 

 to be acquired by constant practice, and on which we plume ourselves 

 not a little. He is the sweetest hack in England, and shakes his head 

 and rolls his shoulders gaily as we i*estrain the canter from becoming a 

 gallop. Were he not the sweetest, etc., he would begin to plunge from 

 sheer exuberance of spirits ; we could almost find it in our heart to 

 indulge him. The scared sheep scour off for a few paces, shaking their 

 woolly coat, and then turn round to gaze at us as Ave fleet from field to 

 field. ... A scarlet coat glances along the lane in front, and, as this is 

 our last bit of grass, and, moreover, the furrows lie the right waj^ we 

 catch hold of The Sweetest's head, and treat ourselves to a gallop. Soon 

 we emerge on the high road, and relapse into a ten-mile-an-hour trot. 

 The Sweetest, who thinks nothing of twelve, going well on his haunches, 

 and quite within himself." 



That was how they went to covert in the Shires early 

 in the sixties, when Why te- Melville wrote Market 

 Harborough, and Lord Stamford mastered the Quorn ; 

 at least, that was the pleasantest way to journey on 

 to a meet in those delectable regions where bridle- 

 roads still prevail, where grass " ridings " abound, 

 and gates, properly hung, fly open to the crafty 

 application of the hunting-whip. 



We do not all hunt in the grass countries, but, no 

 matter in what happy hunting grounds we encamp, 

 let us have tolerably fine weather, and my vote would 

 always be for the saddle versus " trap " or space- 



