NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



December morning, with a sharp easterly breeze. Not, 

 perhaps, an ideal wind for hunting, yet the day is so 

 cheerful, and the countryside, under the pleasant wintry 

 sun, assumes so fair an aspect, that all assembled at the 

 village meet are in excellent spirits. Cycling across to 

 the trysting-place, one looks over a wide expanse of 

 marsh pastures, bounded on one hand by the sea, 

 upon the other by a semicircle of low hills, which rise 

 in the far distance. Upon these broad pastures, inter- 

 sected by deepish dykes, now since the rains well 

 replenished with water, graze prosperous-looking cattle. 

 Their life is a quiet one, they live remote from mankind. 

 A passing cycle or a cart they may see now and again 

 upon the solitary road, but as a rule the hare, the heron, 

 the pee-wit, a hawk or two, a few snipe, and wild duck 

 and partridges, are their only neighbours. In winter, 

 it is true, they are periodically excited by the doings of 

 the harrier pack met together this morning, and the 

 deep voices of hounds and the twang of the horn become 

 pretty familiar. 



Our meet is a small one, for our hounds are hunted 

 on foot ; ours is, happily, not a fashionable pack, and 

 as a rule not more than a score or so of us assemble to 

 follow the hare over the marsh country. On the other 

 hand, sport is here almost invariably good ; we have few 

 interruptions from excited ignoramuses, who imagine 

 that every hare they see is the hunted one ; and we can 

 enjoy to the full the wonderful pleasure of seeing hounds 

 conducting their own hunting over a wide, wild land- 

 scape almost unaided. 



Now we move from the village to the meadows trend- 

 ing towards the sea, and for ten minutes hounds hunt 

 eagerly hither and thither in search of a line. Suddenly 

 comes a quiet holloa from behind. Upon a little emin- 

 ence amid the bright green pastures stands a man hold- 



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