The Thrill of " Tally-Ho ! ' 



THERE are some delightful occasions in outdoor life 

 when immediate happenings are so engrossingly inter- 

 esting that any misbehaviour of the elements is com- 

 pletely overlooked, and one forgets one is being slowly, 

 but surely, soaked to the skin. A coat-collar may be 

 turned up, the action being more mechanical than 

 protective. The shelter of a high hedge may even be 

 sought, but high hedges seldom exist on a bleak 

 mountain-side, as the mountain wind rarely allows tall 

 whitethorns to add syncopation to the weird monotony 

 of its rhythm. One can only stay still, forget the down- 

 pour, and watch hounds. 



The Master has just put them in. The small hazel 

 covert battles its way up the mountain-side until the 

 wind and the impoverished soil thin it to scattered 

 clusters of dwarfed saplings that are soon swallowed up 

 in the more hardy greenness of the gorse. There are 

 great big clumps of it, old and seasoned, struggling 

 upwards, ever upwards, using grey rugged boulders as 

 stepping-stones in their efforts to reach the summit; 

 efforts that are futile, for the purple-brown heather 

 appears and completes the final stage of the ascent. 

 On the rain-swept dome, flung in clear-cut silhouette 



33 



