WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 137 



autumn two or three great apples, the finest of the 

 year, put as ornaments among the china, and the 

 corners of the looking-glass decorated with bunches 

 of ripe wheat. A badger's skin lies across the back 

 of the armchair ; a fox's head, the sharp white tusks 

 showing, snarls over the doorway ; and in glass cases 

 are a couple of stuffed kingfishers, a polecat, a white 

 blackbird, and a diver rare here shot in the mere 

 hard by. 



On the walls are a couple of old hunting pictures, 

 dusky with age, but the crudity of the colours by no 

 means toned down, or their rude contrast moderated : 

 bright scarlet coats, bright white horses, harsh green 

 grass, prim dogs, stiff trees, human figures immov- 

 able in tight buckskins ; running water hard as glass, 

 the sky fixed, the ground all too small for the grouping ; 

 perspective painfully emphasized, so as to be itself 

 made visible ; the surface everywhere "painty " in 

 brief, most of the possible faults compressed together, 

 and proudly fathered by the artist's name in full. 



One representing a meet, and the other full cry, the 

 pack crossing a small river ; the meet still and rigid, 

 every horseman in his place not a bit jingling, or a 

 hoof pawing, or anything in motion. Now the beauty 

 of the meet, as distinct from a drilled cavalry troop, 

 is its animation : horses and riders moving here and 

 there, gathering together and spreading out again, 

 newcomers riding smartly up, in continuous fresh- 

 ness of grouping, and constant relief to the eye. The 

 other in full cry all polished and smooth and var- 



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