Appendix II 



So I sit me down, and I close my eyes — 



Forgetting life's cares and ills — 

 And lose myself in a rattling burst 



Of an eight-mile point to the hills. 



There is the old fox-covert, larches, and oak, and fir, 



And gorse. At the corner, waiting, are the cream of 



Leicestershire, 

 Mute, and anxious, and hopeful, hardly daring to stir. 

 Not a voice is heard, not a whisper, not a breath of wind 



in the air. 

 Silence ! such tension if prolonged 

 Would be more than one's nerves could bear. 



But the gorse is bending, and shaking ; bracken, and 



brush, and fern 

 Are torn and riven asunder by muzzle and waving stern, 

 As Reynard within eludes them by many a wary turn. 

 It's getting too hot to hold him ; the covert rings with 



the cry 

 Of that glorious Pytchley chorus, that maddening melody. 

 As twenty couples of " ladies " proclaim that this fox 



shall die. 



He's scarcely a second before them ; he cannot much 



longer stay. 

 See ! the whip's cap high on the sky-line ! At last they've 



got him away. 

 Yonder he goes at the corner, and the whisk of his brush 



seems to say, 

 " You'll have to gallop, my beauties, if you mean to 



catch me to-day ! " 



156 



