xxiv Yorkshire, 



Nothing but the same excuse prevented me paying my 

 usual trip into Yorkshire, and diversifying these notes 

 with a whisper of their doings. I am dehghted to be 

 able to state, from a friendly authority of the best 

 description, that that pillar of hunting and all that 

 appertains to it, Mr. George Lane Fox, is slowly but 

 surely recovering from his serious illness, and with 

 returning Spring, he trusts to rise once more equal to the 

 occasion of responding to the toast, "The Bramham 

 and its twenty-five couple." 



There are many other things that may have been said 

 about fox-hunting as a whole, and the West Midlands 

 in particular, which have been left unsaid, in this second 

 series of my notes for the past year, but the circum- 

 stances under which they have been written have had 

 a depressing effect on their author, and were it not that 

 his young and rising artist, Mr. H. F. Mytton, had 

 spurred him on by his spirited sketches and promise of 

 assistance, and that Sir Watkin and Lady Williams 

 Wynn and other good sportsmen had put not only their 

 portraits at his behest, but also their good wishes, he 

 would fain not have attempted it. To wait, however, 

 for a more convenient season that may never come, is 

 not a foxhunter's m.otto. We always try to take things 

 as they come, and come what may, we accept the 

 country over which our fox chooses to take us — only 

 delighting to ride straight, give hounds room, and not 

 interfere with other people — a quick eye, steady nerve, 

 soft hand, strong grip, and good temper, carry a man 

 over many troubles, and, I trust, will continue to do so 

 long after the notes of the season 1885-86 have passed 

 into oblivion. 



