204 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE, 



but in a new scene and in fresh company, you might be inhabit- 

 ing another sphere. Yesterday's existence has gone up to the 

 clouds and calls for a moment's thought to bring it down 

 again. Yes, personally, I enjoy raking out the half-burnt ashes 

 and warming myself over their recovered glow. Who knows, or 

 how soon, when the brightness may be dead, and the warmth 

 all wanting ? 



Tis Wednesday night. Let me study the heaven, and the 

 signs. A clear sky, a southerly wind and an optimist groom 

 pronouncing, after the manner of his kind, " 'osses all well." 

 He rightly deems that there can be no calling him to account 

 before Sunday when we shall pick out and present him 

 with more thorns than he ever dreamed of for stable per- 

 quisites, and discover for him possibly more passing injuries 

 than he has bandages to treat. (But then theyicte Achates of 

 a writer is but as a relative or intimate of an angry M.F.H., an 

 exponent subject, a whipping block, to " point a moral and 

 adorn a tale," and is certainly no worse than his fellows, except 

 in print.) 



Thursday evening, Feb. 3. What did you do at Dunchurch ? 

 Let me tell you what we did from Shuckburgh, as far as time 

 will admit a proviso that must always accompany an account 

 of a Thursday run. The two Warwickshires to-day met within 

 a few miles of each other on their respective sides of the 

 beautiful Yale. The morning embodied a wild, warm gale, and 

 brought nothing but confusion and discomfort. To hear was 

 impossible, to see was difficult, to retain your beaver a feat of 

 balance and sleight-of-hand combined. At two o'clock Lord 

 Willoughby de Broke took his hounds on to the Welsh Koad 

 Gorse near Ladbroke (from which we last year saw so sharp a 

 run ) an( i half the company went home. " No scent ; save 

 your horse for another day ! " and so, my gay and noble 

 adviser, you lost the most brilliant run of the season ! 



2.30 P.M. The gale, now somewhat moderated, blowing 

 towards Shuckburgh, but a rare stout fox, with a point in view 

 and a heart within him, away up the breeze. Forty or fifty 



