286 HUNTING. 



your gallop (at least take your chance of a gallop) with the 

 Old Berkshire, the South Berkshire, the Bicester, the Heythrop, 

 nay, no reason why you should not penetrate into the very 

 Shires themselves. By leaving King's Cross at 7.45 you can 

 reach Grantham at 10.35, ^.nd a train from the same station 

 starting half an hour earlier will land you at Melton at 10.32. 

 Leaving Euston at 7.30 you reach Rugby at 9.34 ; leaving 

 St. Pancras at 8.10 you reach Market Harboro' at 10.44. In 

 short, if you do not mind, as we have said, taking your pleasure 

 somewhat laboriously, you may get plenty of hunting, and 

 plenty of good hunting, without ever passing a winter's night 

 away from your London home. But, certainly, if not sorrow, 

 it is labour. It is not only the early rising ; though that alone, 

 on a dark winter's morning when the water is of dubious 

 warmth, and the fire probably will do nothing but smoke, in 

 sullen protest against its too premature lighting, does in- 

 deed entail something of a struggle on this poor frail human 

 flesh. To dress at dawn is never an enlivening process, and 

 when the dress is such as men go a-hunting in, it is often little 

 short of misery. To button those knee-buttons, and tie those 

 natty little bows below them, your eyes still heavy with sleep, 

 and with blue fingers senseless with cold — ah ! my friend, nate 

 mecum Cofisiile Majilio — must one not be very fond of the 

 game, indeed, to bear these matutinal ills without repining more 

 than once ? Still, the good sportsman disdains mere sensual 

 sorrows. The man who would grudge to give his morning 

 sleep for a gallop over the grass is unworthy the name of a 

 sportsman and a Briton ! But these desperate hours signify 

 long marches into the bowels of the land ; they signify long 

 journeys by train, and they in their turn signify much disburse- 

 ment of moneys, and much wear and tear of flesh, both human 

 and equine. Nothing sooner tires a man, body and brain, 

 than long and frequent railway journeys. Indeed, one might 

 say that no man, unless he be of cast-iron nerves, can stand 

 them long when once he is past the first vigour of manhood, 

 especially if he be one who lives by brain-work. It is burning 



