SIR EGBERT HARVEY ''8 HARRIERS. 113 



away a clinker. Then an opportunity was afforded 

 of testing the speed of this pretty pack, for though 

 mounted on an Irish horse with a turn of speed and 

 well up to my weight, I had to stretch him a few 

 to keep alongside of them during the fifteen minutes 

 they raced after puss. Pressed hard, she took to a 

 piece of covert, and though a fresh hare jumped up 

 in view the hounds were not to be balked of their 

 prey, and soon put an end to number one. This was 

 a very pretty piece of sport, the hounds doing their 

 work admirably throughout this pleasant little spurt. 

 So far the fences were light and easily negotiable ; 

 but as we approached the Thames in the vicinity of 

 Magna Charta Island, and also in the direction of 

 Horton, they assumed larger proportions, bringing 

 several well-mounted men muchly to grief. Little 

 time elapsed before we found another hare, which we 

 hustled away at a racing pace, running into her in 

 some seventeen minutes or thereabouts. Having 

 been thus far successful, we speedily were on the line 

 of another and, this time, a stouter hare, which took 

 us across a park-like piece of pasture-land, and over 

 a large section of ploughed ground ; then doubling back 

 she went across some meadows in the direction of 

 Horton. At this point she crossed a wide and deep 

 brook a piece of water that was big enough to stop 

 every bold rider save one, and that one a lady, for 

 Miss Harvey /"pulling her horse together, rode fearlessly 

 at the big jump ; but her nag, hesitating for a moment 

 on the brink of the dark and dirty-looking stream, 

 and being compelled by its plucky rider to yield to 

 her soft persuasions in the shape of a well-applied cut 

 of her whip, jumped the lot, reaching the treacherous, 



