448 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



nity of rolling into the brook field with a second horseman, 

 and, like him, rolling out again over the water. And they 

 exchanged five minutes of fun for as many of clattering 

 agony, while they beat the road's unsympathising surface in 

 their mad gallop to reach the front. This they achieved at 

 Grumbler's Holt, once more returned, and set forth again 

 from Plumpton wood ; so to the well-fenced neighbourhood of 

 Blakesley village. Oh ! for a stable- Aladdin, and new legs for 

 old ! And, " oh ! how full of briars is this work-a-day world," 

 and its ditches ! The Blakesley brook, too, a gentle stream, no 

 doubt, and a tiny rivulet here and there. Then why should it 

 .ask for a 20-foot bed, and for the shelter of a dark stake-and- 

 bound as it flows under the village ? Only, I ween, that it may 

 bring men to shame and horses to grief. I am told that the 

 hunstman himself has here been caught more than once, 

 and that one of our hardest and straightest has only once 

 got to the other bank after counting four failures. Let these 

 former incidents pass, the first essayist of to-day met the usual 

 fate ; but fished his horse out so quietly that the next, contented 

 to accept the lead with such confidence as is inspired by good 

 example, merely drove his spurs home to make assurance 

 doubly sure. He said afterwards he dreamed little or nothing 

 of water, till the grey mare took off a length and a half from 

 the fence, and the chasm gradually loomed out as they went 

 into upper air. Her best effort brought her barely to the 

 further bank. For a moment she was poised upright on her 

 head, the girths flashed amid a blaze of white and sparkle of 

 iron, and the next second she completed the somersault. Now, 

 I regret to say on the best authority, she is poised on three 

 legs for awhile. Well, it might have been worse over wire. 

 This, too, had to be submitted to a while later on not at the 

 same hands or heels, it is true. But the caution came home, 

 the lesson was read and bitterly digested though no great 

 harm resulted now. It was in a very sharp scurry from Tite's 

 Copse, amid what was long held to be the prettiest patch of 

 the Grafton country till, first, an evil spirit suggested a railway 



