THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 



All went well for the next five fields. The fences were 

 practicable, and as the distance from Melton was only eight 

 miles, our hero began to think that, from the pace they had 

 been going, he might still arrive before the fox was found. 

 But when in the middle of a very large field, and in the act 

 of descending from the highest part of it, he saw what he 

 suspected might prove to be death to all his ho23es. He saw^ 

 and apparently for miles right and left, the valley he was 

 about to descend into, not, in poetical language — 



' Witli rural dainties crown'd, 

 ^yllil(i opoiuiij;' hlooiiis difluse their sweets around,' 



wliere nothing was to be heard but the hum of insects, the 

 melody of birds, and the wild nmsic of the .shepherd's pipe, 

 but he saw a long and undulating line of stumpy old pollarded 

 willow-trees, which too plainly convinced him that a deep 

 brook was in his line ; and as for the hum of insects, the 

 melody of birds, and tlie wild music of the shepherd's pipe, 

 not a thing could he hear, animate or inanimate, beyond the 

 puffing and blowing of his half-tired horse, and the sort of 

 sucking noise his feet made as he pulled tlieni out of the 

 furrow^s of this highly ridged field. 



' Now what is to be done ? ' was the question he put to 

 himself, — and a serious question it was : for should he not be 

 able to get to hounds, he greatly feared that many a good 

 laugh would be had at his expense, even should he escape 

 being shown up in a caricature as ' a young provincial 

 gentleman going to cover in Leicestershire.' As to a bridge, 

 or a ford, or a road, his eye looked for either in vain ; and 

 when he came down on the brook, and saw where his two 

 guides had taken it in their stroke, he considered himself to 

 be in the most trying situation in which a young sportsman, 

 similarly circumstanced, could be placed. He recollected, 

 hoM'ever, that he had once ridden the horse he was then on, 

 and which had been hunted by a young farmer with his 

 father's harriers, over a brook nearly, if not quite, as wide as 

 the one which now unfortunately arrested his progress ; so he 

 at once determined on riding at it. And he certainly gave 

 him a fair chance ; for it was not until he had turned his head 

 to the wind, and thereby enabled him to recover his strength a 

 little, that he put his intentions into execution. Taking him, 

 then, about twenty yards from its banks, he put liiiii manfully 

 at the brook, which, as we say of the grave, only yawned to 



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