SCRAPTOFT HALL AT TEA-TIME FOR MAN AND FOX. 115 



against some new agent of danger. Now it was carriages or 



second horsemen, then it was a shepherd, and next, and worst 



it was a shepherd's dog with a turn of speed quite on a par 



with that possessed by poor Reynard himself. In the two former 



cases he was turned easily within the huntsman's keen range of 



vision ; and hounds were of course clapped mercilessly on to his 



brush. In the last instance he underwent a most severe course 



under the eyes of the whole body of pursuers, being turned at 



least three times in one field and hotly pursued into the far 



distance, by a black sheepdog who apparently meant to wreak 



full vengeance on poor pug for sporting a brush while he had 



none. However, pug scored on that very point ; for a whisk 



of his heavy brush brought him round far quicker than could 



the two inches of stump owned by his opponent. Then a 



fierce succession of hills and valleys cleared the Punchbowl and 



led between Burrough and Somerby and now a run was a 



certainty, for a fox could scarcely double back against a field 



that had gathered from the four winds and a close chain, at 



least a mile broad were sweeping him before them. The 



pace, in and out of these grassy dips, was all that horses 



could do. And so three fields of plough, carrying not even a 



suspicion of scent, were very welcome to three-fourths of those 



interested. Then came a sudden infusion of vigour and then, 



after a couple of miles of easy grass luxury, the Twyford Brook. 



This ought to have been a luxury, too ; in many cases may have 



been so. But the miserable instinct that would seem to paralyse 



Leicestershire horses on such occasions was only too rampant 



here. A hundred of them achieved the feat of jumping twelve 



feet of space, and six or seven feet of gurgling water. Thirty 



others dipped in, rolled in, and disgraced themselves, because they 



did not care to jump at all. I know the taste of that Twyford 



water well and it is quite as nasty as other waters. But my 



chief abhorrence to it, applicable equally, perhaps, to all other 



water, is that it ought never to be tasted at all. It is no river 



of Damascus, but, except in time of flood, is a meagre stream that 



a three-pound trout would despise. Yet there have been more 



i 2 



