396 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



while Hinton Gorse filled in the vista at some three miles dis- 

 tance. Crossing the belt of plantation leading to Ganderton, 

 horsemen could be seen closing upon hounds gaily to leave the 

 lesser brook behind them. Closer still were they gathered as 

 hounds emerged beyond the yellow water but suddenly now 

 did the movement and the order change. One, two, three are 

 over while the spray flies up like the sudden spouting of a 

 whale on the starboard bow another and another a school of 

 them, spouting or splashing all of a row. Misfortune or sym- 

 pathy are checked on the bank while success flies onwards, 

 singly, in doublets, or even in triplets, but certainly not in mass. 

 And, mark ye, how they gallop when over ! Surely the pack must 

 be racing now ! And it is only afterwards we get to understand 

 that this sudden access of speed was merely as it were, the 

 natural let-off of delighted spirit, the outcome of victory, the 

 spurt of exuberance. Don't I know it ? Don't you, reader, who 

 have been weak enough ever to permit such sensations as vanity, 

 competition, or pride of place to linger in your heart of course 

 when I, and you, were younger ? For alas, ambition and ardour, 

 they tell us, have nothing to do with grey hairs or bald 

 heads. Then it must be something else (what is it ?) that pushes 

 maturity into the front rank so consistently wherever hounds are 

 ridden after, in the shires. And we know the opposite, too, do 

 we not the surge of the water into ears and eyes, the pang of 

 disappointment far w r orse than the drenching, the angling for 

 bridlereins, the diving for stirrup leathers, the helpless stupidity 

 of a half-drowned horse, and the vapid shallowness of our 

 subsequent and carefully prepared explanations ? 



Let me hinder you no longer. There was a way round, as 

 there always is. Otherwise the man who never jumps a fence 

 would not be able so often to testify to " as fine a run as I ever 

 saw." So we will go round, and imagine ourselves at Hinton 

 Gorse, whither some forty minutes had brought fox and hounds. 

 And the next thing we see of them is at Charwelton Osierbed, 

 where they are seeking another. The black clouds are gather- 

 ing again ; the north wind is rising once more ; but a jolly fox 



