372 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



PACE AND BLOOD. 



A SCENT again on Monday, Nov. 26, and what I may 

 safely term " an excellent hound run " with the Grafton that 

 morning. The wind had dropped, the sun showed us his face 

 once more, and we were treated to sport that we could, all see 

 and enjoy. The meet was at Wood ford, the run from Hinton 

 Gorse adjacent. 



It was nearly half an hour before a fox would go : which, as 

 each and every corner was closely besieged by foot people, was 

 scarcely to be wondered at. But when once away, they ran him 

 for fifty minutes with only a single trifling check and pulled 

 him down in the open. Over a nice and none too difficult 

 country, too not straight enough to warrant the spinning of a 

 lengthy yarn ; but withal a very merry hunt. 



Fox and hounds left in about the only direction open to 

 them, viz., by Hinton House ; and we, one and all, lost useful 

 time by crowding into the little gateways when we ought to 

 have been jumping the little hedges alongside. But somehow 

 we adopt very gatey habits whenever we find ourselves at all in 

 the vicinity of the awe-inspiring domain of Fawsley, with its 

 double ramparts and its many doorways. So hounds easily 

 kept their Vantage up to the Byfield and Daventry turnpike 

 where, as is customary, their fox was headed. He threaded the 

 road for a while towards Badby, then rose the hill leftward ; 

 and a sweet piece of hunting laid open the puzzle inch by inch. 

 Now they ran hard, and I must tax memory to decipher the 

 line. It led over two lofty hills of grass and red plough (if 

 their names are not Blackdown and Vengeance, I read my map 

 wrongly) kept clear of Griffin's Gorse, by two fields to the 

 right. Now we recognised the ground of the first Pytchley 

 Saturday of this season ; and quickly and fearfully we asked 

 of the wire strand we remembered then. It's down, answered 

 the good farmer, while he held gate for our passage and his 

 word was quickly proved by fifty men jumping the fence 

 beyond. 



