274 The Hunting Field With Horse and Houfid 



hearted King Arthur, led the way, hard after the pack, down 

 the hill, through a narrow strip of covert out on to the open 

 moor. Here we were joined by the huntsman and a whipper- 

 in on fresh horses. There was a moment's check, and on again 

 over the great open moor. What a gallop! Hi! hi! hi! On 

 we went for another mile or so when finally ]Mr. Reynard rolled 

 over in the open and "his spirit," as the old biographers 

 were fond of saying, "took its flight to that bourne from which 

 no traveller has ever returned." 



What a lucky ending for such a disappointing beginning! 

 The rain had ceased. The sun in patches here and there was 

 sweeping over the great heather-covered hills, lingering now 

 and again in a valley or loitering in a ravine, only to burst 

 forth at greater speed over the rounded crest of a footliill; 

 then to continue the chase after the shaft that preceded it, 

 until lost in the misty atmosphere of the distant hills. 



The wi'iter's pen is surely at a loss to describe the beauties 

 of the moors as they broke upon us that day. Here and there 

 a patch of fleecy white cloud, recently wrung dry of rain, was 

 resting quietly in a dark ravine or again in the lee of an abrupt 

 shoulder of a liill. These fleecy white patches suggested that 

 the ^Yeat mountains behind were waving on the chase of the 

 clouds Or was it the chase of the fox? 



Reader, ha^^ you ^'^i' seen the fells and mountains of 

 Bonnie ScotlanJ wh^^i the heathtx .vas in bloom? If so, you 

 will surely say, with the writer, that it is one of the most beauti- 

 ful sights in the world. If not, can you imagine thousands 

 and tens of thousands of acres of moor, hill, ravine, and moun- 

 tain, covered with a carpet of the richest brown and softest 

 purple? Not a tree nor a shrub to break the evenness of the 

 landscape — now and again little patches of the greenest grass, 

 or a spot of black barren earth that rather adds to than de- 

 tracts from the general effect. In the low lands the heather 

 grows to a height of eighteen or twenty inches, which grad- 



