THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 163 



thirty are, if possible, still more enjoyable, thougli, 

 perhaps, less in accordance with ultra notions of 

 pace than the burst, being a combination of running 

 and hunting- with a holding scent. It is very, very 

 rarely, in the provincials (excepting, of course, par- 

 ticular parts which may equal the best hunting coun- 

 tries), that a scent, however good, will serv^e equally 

 over every variety of land, intersected by lanes, with 

 here and there a village, or, at least, a colony, whence 

 emanate a tide of such screams as afford the most incon- 

 testible proofs of a thorough non-acquiescence in the 

 doctrines of Malthus. But there has been nothino^ like 

 a check ; through good or ill report, the fox has held 

 his way, has kept his head straight ; his line has laid 

 through the centre of large fields, to the detriment of 

 seeds, save where the surrounding hedge greens afford 

 him 251'eferable footing. By taking to these, he occa- 

 sionally makes closer work for the gallant pack, which 

 turn at undiminished speed, winding with his every 

 shift, true as the needle to the Pole. Who, in the 

 ardour of the chase, can stop to examine the nature of 

 grain ? '' How the devil," said the cockney, " could I 

 tell turnips, unless they had boiled mutton in the middle 

 of them?" "Ware wheat" is all well enough at any 

 other time, and no one, truly interested in the sport, 

 will wantonly commit an injury ; but now the farmers 

 themselves are the first to charge pell mell " over wheat 

 or what not." " Forward !" is the cry — foiward is the 

 ruling impulse. The noses of the hounds seem supe- 



11—2 



