ROUGE ET NOIK. 103 



the tide surged on towards Thurnby. Almost immediately, 

 however, it swept round to the right, and cut the lane near 

 Scraptoft Hall. Into the lane was awkward enough with 

 its wide straggling hedge and deep blind ditch and we of 

 the road found it no easy task to ride clear of falling horses 

 and rolling men. But out of the lane presented a difficulty 

 still less fascinating, in the form of a strong oxer, to be taken 

 at a stand. The leaders rattled the far rail gaily; and sat 

 in all sorts of queer postures as they wriggled over. But it 

 seemed a long long time ere any one made the timber give 

 and meanwhile the hounds were flying down the slope for 

 Keyham as if their fox was still in view. 



Why is it that year by year your penman has only some half- 

 dozen names with which to ring the changes, with any special 

 pack ? Is it fair upon the scribbler that, with every craving 

 for variety of material, he finds that each season a certain few 

 men single themselves out as keener and quicker than others 

 in each Hunt, though the test comes day after day ? Thus it 

 was heart-breaking in that first bruising ten minutes to look 

 ahead in vain for fresh food. (The printer's devil, in fact, 

 seeking whom he might devour.) I believe I am safe in 

 asserting that I can tell the back of every thruster of the Quorn, 

 a good field away. Mr. Leatham's sturdy figure was unmis- 

 takably forward on the bay; Capt, Smith and Downs were 

 alongside him (these two never fall out of the prominent 

 few or certainly never have since I began hunting) ; while 

 Count Kinsky, with Messrs. Brocklehurst and Barclay, again 

 went to represent the flower of Melton (all of them, by the 

 way, buds of very recent years). Lord Manners had lost scarce 

 any ground by his fall, and was with hounds again in two fields. 

 But several others lost all their chance just now, by jumping a 

 fence to the right and condemning themselves to two fields of 

 deep steam-plough. How cheering it is, when a bullfinch frowns 

 unbroken and apparently impenetrable between you and hounds, 

 to see two sharp quick men flash through it in turn leaving it 

 all easy and open for the next anxious comer ! So argued he, 



