220 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



the water and another bridge was there. Oh, but I would 

 not have gone by that bridge, if you would frank me to the most 

 rollicking comedy of the year. Nobody saw it but I, sweet sir ; 

 and on my honour I will ne'er betray you for are you not one 

 of the boldest and best that ever schooled a nag on his own 

 farm ? And I ought not to have seen it, but that I, too, was* 

 " delayed on business." Two, three, four, " six of 'em took it in 

 their stride " and close in their wake came the speediest and 

 most determined of all. 



Look that your bridle be wight, my lord, 

 And your horse go swift as ship at sea : 

 Look that your spurres be bright and sharp, 

 That you may prick her while she'll away. 



And had not his bridle been wight, and strong as leather should 

 be, I ween that it never had stood the strain or the master 

 escaped a wetting when thirteen stone seven hung down the 

 bank at one end, and the sorrel, with outstretched legs and 

 down-turned head, held back at the other. A horseman, too,, 

 far above the common. But the impetus was awful. 



So far, so good ; and still we did not leave the brookside. 

 Fox and hounds were pointing for Staverton, when the former 

 encountered two men at work, and the chase forthwith crossed 

 our front with a swing to the right. In the hurry and turmoil 

 it was difficult to see why such a plain-looking oxer as now 

 lay between men and hounds should be beyond a fair hunter' s- 

 compass. But the width of a Northamptonshire ditch is a 

 varied and often illusory quantity, especially when it chances to- 

 mark the line of a valley. I don't fancy any one struck the 

 oxer ; but I am open to correction if any one covered the ditch 

 though three experimentalists in a row were seen busily 

 sorting hat-strings and bridle-reins after a simultaneous essay. 

 Lower to the right, or higher to the left, the fence was moderate 

 enough : and gladly, by the way, I noticed that a horrid strand 

 of barbed wire had been lowered since a fox was first hunted 

 this way in the early autumn. Else had a fearful catch most 

 certainly have been made to-day. 



Fast they ran, now along the valley for perhaps another mile, 



