THE BRAUNSTON GALLOP OF THE PYTCHLEY. 311 



wider now, but the pace no less severe. Ridge and furrow, too, 

 was no relief and, I might have mentioned by way of plea for 

 steeds that early began to sob, many of those racing fences of 

 the Flecknoe neighbourhood had a heavy drop in store, for 

 horses jumping vigorously and landing wide. Besides, was not 

 this to every hunter engaged, his first gallop since the frost ? A 

 shining ox rail garnished one of the last hedges before the 

 Shuckburgh-and-Staverton road. Mr. Adamthwaite's little 

 brown rose sharp and flippantly as the spur went in twice to 

 the final stride ; Mr. Foster chose double-timber, and left it 

 behind him undisturbed ; but Mr. Cunard's good mare only 

 saved herself by a clever in-and-out. Her bolt was all but 

 shot, and two minutes later her head was resting plaintively on 

 a ditch bank. Refusal was the fate of the next comer, a heavy 

 fall that of the next the latter being the lot of one of the 

 oldest members of the Hunt, Mr. Mills, who to-day was riding 

 to hounds with all the quick talent of twenty, or, may be, of 

 twice that number of, years ago but who was soon back in his 

 saddle, happy and mirthful, and going on with his son. Mrs. 

 Dalgleish and Mrs. Graham made the oxer no easier ; but 

 Capt. Faber served it usefully. Scrambling over bank and 

 weak double, the party left the road for the dingle-broken 

 slopes that form the side-vale to Catesby. Did one of the 

 above gallant officers recognise, I wonder, the first blind water- 

 course of which he and the black horse of to-day made no 

 shallow survey some seasons ago and before he set off to the 

 land of Pharaoh ? 



You will vote me garrulous ere I've done. But I have you 

 by the buttonhole now, and must have out my say craving 

 pardon not so much of you but of the good fellows with whose 

 names I am making free. I pretend to no completeness of 

 story : but impressions are by no means as fleeting as the 

 happy moments themselves, and here they are and peopled 

 as they came to me. 



Now men were crawling in single file over three cramped 

 water-girt hedges marking three deep notches in the grassy 



