THE PROVINCES. 223 



But how differently is the same sport being carried 

 out in his father's country, perhaps by the old gentle- 

 man's own pack, with which the young one considers it 

 slow to hunt. 



Let us begin at the beginning and try to imagine a 

 good day in the provinces, about the third week in 



November, when leaves are thin and threadbare on the 

 I 

 fences, while copse and woodland glisten under subdued 



shafts of sunlight in sheets of yellow gold. 



What says Mr. Warburton, favoured of Diana and 

 the Muses ? 



" The dew-drop is clinging 

 To whin-bush and brake, 

 The sky-lark is singing, 

 Merry hunters, awake ! 

 Home to the cover, 

 Deserted by night, 

 The little red rover 

 Is bending his flight " 



Could words more stirringly describe the hope and 

 promise, the joy, the vitality, the buoyant exhilaration 

 of a hunting morning ? 



So the little red rover, who has travelled half-a-dozen 

 miles for his supper, returns to find he has "forgotten 

 his latch-key," and curls himself up in some dry, warm 

 nook amongst the brushwood, at the quietest corner of 

 a deep, precipitous ravine. 



