PACE AND BLOOD. 375 



Hernplow. "The devil take the hindmost" indeed ! Why, 

 he had them all but a foremost score and the fastest of these 

 never got a pull till a four-mile effort placed them at Naseby 

 Woolleys ! 



By the back of the farmhouse below the gully of Elkington 

 Bottom went a thin stream of horsemen headed, I fancy, by 

 Mr. C. Marriott and seconded by Mr. Wrotighton and the first 

 whip, while parallel to them on the other side of the house a 

 second thin stream worked up the steep ascent. The former 

 crossed and recrossed a straggling hedge ; the two parties met 

 on the summit ; and the whole, led by the Master, wheeled 

 rightward to plunge into the steep gulch of Elkington Bottom. 

 No chance of tightening hold upon rein, except in tune with a 

 lustier squeeze from the knee. Gallop up the green houseside 

 we must. Blood and condition shall help us or fail us. Now 

 we are mounting Honey Hill at an angle more suited to wild 

 Dunkery of Exmoor than to rich Northamptonshire. Thus 

 climbing, and straining, and striving, for the first several 

 minutes then to choose between holding the lofty station 

 attained or turning downwards to the pack now sinking the 

 valley beneath. Mr. Adamthwaite alone chooses the better 

 part, darts through the overhanging bullfinch, and joins hounds 

 on lower ground. Even then he can barely keep his hold so 

 sharp and unflagging is the pace, as they rise a last little brow 

 and give him quick practice of the old subject, " in-and-out-a- 

 road." Nor is it the only sampler of similar subject for-in- 

 and-out-a-plantation comes next, and in-and-out-a-rickyard 

 immediately afterwards. 



Now the " upper succle," as dear Jorrocks dubbed them, 

 swoop down from their high estate, and take head in the fray 

 Mr. Mills bringing up his juniors and leading them all, along 

 the valley land, past the left of the Reservoir and up to the 

 plantations amidst which nestles the house of Naseby Woolleys. 

 The Master, his huntsman and whip, Messrs. F. Langham, G. 

 Cunard, Fender, Wroughton, Marriott, Mills (tertius), Forte, 

 Sheriffe, and several others, were all with hounds at this time ; 



