28 RADNOR REMINISCENCES 



a pleasant chat for a couple of hours with a bit of music, 

 we went out and took a smell at the weather and decided 

 the worst of the storm was over and that the morrow 

 would be fine. Our guess was right. The morning was 

 beautiful. Hounds were on the hill back of the house when 

 we had finished breakfast at nine-thirty, and the horses 

 waiting for us at the door. 



Mr. Mather kindly mounted me on a chestnut mare, 

 "Southern Girl" out of "Miss Louden," by "Pagan," 

 one of his own breeding, as were all the other horses in the 

 field, including the hounds. 



Mr. William M. Kerr drove in the gate just as we were 

 getting up. He was given that good old chaser "Home- 

 spun" to ride, and we jogged over to take a look at the 

 hounds, and as Sabretache says in "The Tatler": 



"There's a very different feeling comes to one on a morn- 

 ing like this. It's all a bit strange, the horse, the hounds, 

 the country; and, my! how big and upstanding the fences 

 are, and you wish the other fellows did not look so con- 

 foundedly brave. But it all vanishes after you've had 

 two or three of the best, and 'Chestnutoss' has given 

 you that great feel, that he always did, of being able to go 

 about six inches higher and two yards farther, if necessary, 

 and the saddle, that seemed to have forgotten how to fit 

 you, slips back into all the old niches that make you be- 

 lieve that you could n't possibly come unstuck, even if he 

 went half across the next field on his head! One light note 

 in covert, the crash as hounds go out over the boundary 

 fence, one touch of the horn, and the whistle of God's 

 glorious oxygen past your back hair as 'Chestnutoss* 

 gets a nice hold and drops on to his bit with a sort of 

 *what's-all-the-fuss-about?' manner, and you are right 

 in a thing called a trivet — whatever that may be. I 've 



