270 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



never attended one of the Pytchley early meets, but 

 I am told that the attendance at them is only little 

 lessened by the earliness of the hour. Perhaps some 

 of the keenest sportsmen wish it were a little earlier, 

 so as to enable them to hunt with the Pytchley first 

 and some other pack afterwards, and thus get seven 

 days' hunting in the week. " To hunt six days a 

 week, and talk about it the seventh," was somebody's 

 idea of earthly bliss. As the opportunity of doing so 

 has not come in everybody's way, I may perhaps be 

 allowed to express the opinion that six days a week is 

 rather too much. For though the season I tried it 

 in which, by the way, we had two months without one 

 day's frost I was perhaps fitter than at any other 

 time in my life, I was drawn a bit fine by March, and, 

 truth to tell, a little inclined to look forward to Sunday, 

 and to remark about three o'clock : " They won't do 

 any more good ; anybody going my way ? " Whereas 

 in other years it had been: " Going home! oh, no, 

 they're sure to find at so-and-so." In fact, I distinctly 

 recollect one evening, ten years ago, with the H. H. 

 (I wonder if Mr. Arthur Wood does ?) when he and I, 

 and possibly one or two more besides the servants, 

 dragged on after a beaten fox till long after dark, 

 jumping our fences on the principle of putting all the 

 steam possible on at each, as we could not possibly see 

 what they were. The " beaten fox " beat us all the 

 same. But I have got a long way from the Pytchley, 

 and must " try back." 



At the time I write of the Pytchley were, and still 

 are, hunted by a Goodall, to how many members of 



