now ABOUT THOSE GREENS ? 3 



the farm buildings and elicited from a man pulping roots the nearest and 

 shortest cut to Blackmore, hounds could be seen just entering Fryerning 

 Wood ; and hearing that Horsefrith Park would be taken as a forlorn hope, 

 we luckily, as the sequel will show, held on, otherwise it would have been 

 a case of " came out too late on Saturday" and " left too soon on Monday " 

 — a double-barrel that would effectually have choked us off foxhunting for 

 a month. 



" How about those greens ? " said Jack to the huntsman, as he was 

 unfastening the straw band that held the gate near Horsefrith Park, point- 

 ing at the same time to some ver}^ likely-looking cabbages on the opposite 

 side of the lane, " And a very likely place, too," said Mr. David Christy. 

 Certainly they were a splendid crop, affording ample covert. But no, it 



The Countess of Warwick's "Athboy" by "Ascetic" 



J-i-oiH a /'ainting by Lynivood Palmer 

 Winner 1st J'r/'zes, Kic/imond, Royal Sho-a', Leicester and Peterborough, 1896 



was not to be, and so to Horsefrith Park and then home was the order. 

 Following young Mr. Marriage through his father's farm, we had barely 

 passed it before we heard Bailey's yack ! yack ! as hounds opened in 

 covert. " Keep him up," shouted the huntsman, and crack went half-a- 

 dozen thongs as we galloped the grass field on the Blackmore side. But 

 this was no Blackmore fox, but a real stout customer, who was not to be 

 baulked of his line, and Jack was already over the fence under the tree, 

 screaming his lustiest, as the big dog hounds, fresh as if only just out of 

 kennel, tore across the first big stubble field. Two fences, as blind as your 

 hat and as dark as Erebus, and we jumped into and crossed the first of the 

 six or seven roads and lanes we had to negotiate during the thirty minutes 

 the gallop lasted over the cream of the country, taking in a lot of sound 

 grass. Touching Spain's Wood, four miles to that point, they left Screens 

 Park on the left, and two miles further on lost their fox at Moor Wood, 

 Roxwell. 



