190 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



shut out from view two entirely successful summersaults per- 

 formed in due course by the fated among the first essayists. It is 

 true, moreover, that two fields more of fast riding told those who 

 <lid come out of the situation still on horseback, that they needn't 

 have done it at all. A crowd was determined to go this way : 

 and quite a crowd went. For, indeed, the men of white collars 

 (with many and many others whom they are good enough to 

 bid to share the fun with them) will ride. They rode in full 

 form to-day, and yet no one, I think, could say that, amid all 

 the difficulties of two lengthy hunts, they rode otherwise than 

 fairly. Excellent country stood in their way when this fox at 

 length went forth into the open from Swinford Corner past the 

 right of Swinford Village, nearly straight to Lilbourne station. 

 Turning down wind then, scent waned greatly; but hounds 

 worked the line up the river-side to Swinford Old Covert, 

 quicker round Stanford Hall Park, across river and railway 

 towards the Hemplow. In the midst of this wild grass region 

 their fox seemed utterly beat, turned back to Yelvertoft 

 station, and yet, after crawling the hedgerows thereabouts, 

 managed to drag himself out of scent. 



And now, " lest the reader should get an headache, &c., &c." 

 Space fortunately prevents my recurring at any length to such 

 mishaps as a good sportsman's horse turning, riderless, over a 

 high gate in view of all, and his owner arriving to find his 

 best hunter crippled in the back. Nor under any circumstances 

 should I be justified in recalling beyond as an incidental fact, 

 that mud-covered habits were as many in number as earth- 

 stained coats. 



A ROUGH WEEK. 



YEAR by year, I notice, men of the Midlands still further 

 .accept and adopt the principle of mounting themselves above 

 their weight. A fourteen-stone hunter is in this year of grace 

 the natural conveyance for a rider of calibre or ambition, be he 

 even a featherweight. In fact, such a horse would seem to offer 



