THE PROVINCES. 22/ 



brought him across Tinglebury Tor, where it's always as 

 dry as that hearth-stone, through a flock of five hundred 

 sheep, they rattled him in and out of Combe-Bampton, 

 though the Lower Woods were alive with riot hares, 

 roe, fallow-deer, hang it ! apes and peacocks if you 

 like; had old Matthew not been a fool they would 

 never have hesitated for a moment, and when they ran 

 into him under Crag's-end, there wasn't a man-jack of 

 them missing. Not one that's what I call a pack of 

 hounds ! 



" The best part of it ? So much depends on whether 

 you young fellows go out to hunt, or to ride. For the 

 first half-hour or so we were never off the grass 

 there's not a ploughed field all the way up the valley till 

 you come to Shifner's allotments, orchard and meadow, 

 meadow and orchard, fetlock-deep in grass, even at 

 this time of year. Why, it carries a side-scent, like the 

 heather on a moor ! I suppose you'd have called that 

 the best part. I didn't, though I saw it well from the 

 lane with Matthew and the rest of us, all but the Vicar, 

 who went into every field with the hounds I thought 

 he was rather hard on them amongst those great blind, 

 tangled fences; but he's such a good fellow, I hadn't the 

 heart to holloa at him it's very wrong though, and a 

 man in his profession ought to know better. 



Q 2 



