304 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



hounds on the line in a second and lustily we raced down 

 the bridle road that leads to Prior's Hardwick (three miles 

 away) and which, if we had only been content to follow it, 

 would have kept us within hail of the pack throughout this 

 splendid run. But to our eventual misery we didn't and so 

 were beaten, the fastest gallopers and the fiercest fencers, quite 

 as much as old Pegasus the slow coach. We rode the first mile 

 almost abreast of the flying ladies ; then turned up hill as they 

 swung leftward across us, and by so doing were condemned to 

 hilly ground and fences girt with snow, in place of the smooth 

 safety of the parallel road of the lower vale. They vanished 

 over the first ridge, had gained a quarter of a mile as their 

 nearest followers rose the second ; were visible afterwards only 

 in briefest glimpses ; and finally disappeared no one knew 

 whither. The fences were all to be jumped but not any- 

 where, and not always fast. So, doubtless, they gained some 

 vantage thus. But the sharp undulations did still more for 

 them ; and, again, I daresay they were far fitter than horses 

 after the recent imprisonment. At the road above the brick- 

 yard (on the Welsh road, from Prior's Marston, is it not ?) they 

 were near, by sound, but high hedges cut off the view. They 

 were again to be seen in the next valley, streaming onward for 

 Prior's Hardwick. And here it was (after twenty minutes of 

 straining gallop) that men made their main mistake. Someone 

 of the leaders supposed hounds to have turned again up hill, to 

 the left of Prior's Hardwick. Everybody else supposed he was 

 right, and followed him. The fact being that hounds were just 

 in front, still racing upwind along this superb valley. A mob 

 of miserable men meandered the village this way and that. 

 And hounds went on alone. Leaving Boddington Gorse to the 

 left, they crossed the wide pastures to Wormleighton Village (a 

 point of five miles) ; and on reaching " Scriven's House," at 

 last turned down the wind and took a bee line back to Prior's 

 Marston by way of the neighbourhood of Fern Hill Spinney. 

 About a mile from the last-named village they were at fault in 

 a grass field and here they consented to be overtaken (just 



