MONTH OF THE SEASON? 313 



and how strangely their courses vary with the seasons ! 

 And he has also become aware of certain safe places 

 in the fences, of gaps and the positions of the field 

 gates, so that he can be carried as quickly along the 

 well-known lines as the most determined thruster of 

 them all. Then the delights of the evening ride home 

 after the good day that comes so often in February. 

 The "who-whoop!" — last of the day — sounds between 

 four and five o'clock, and, letting out his girths, he 

 turns his head for home. The gloaming falls, but not 

 the mirk, ere he reaches it, yet the clear air holds 

 the light in the western sky, and the dusk throws 

 romance over his way. 



"When the shades of evening closing round give a 

 fantastic, curious, mysterious aspect to familiar road- 

 side objects ! Loosely lounging in your saddle, with 

 half-closed eyes you almost dream — the gnarled trees 

 grow into giants, cottages into castles, ponds into lakes. 

 The maid of the inn is a lovely princess, and the bread 

 and cheese she brings (while, without dismounting, you 

 let your thirsty horse drink his gruel) tastes more 

 delicious than the finest suppers of champagne with 

 a pate of tortured goose's liver that ever tempted the 

 appetite of a humane anti-foxhunting poet-critic, 

 exhausted by a long night of opera, ballet, and 

 Roman punch." 



So wrote an author in the fifties, who described with 

 singular felicity what of picturesqueness and poetry 

 is to be found in our sport. 



But though I have thus waxed enthusiastic in favour 

 of the claims of February to be regarded " the sweet 

 o' the year," it may be that I am singular in my belief. 



