462 



FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



and broken its guard-rail. Terrible confusion, some language, 

 and some delay the steeplechaser made, I am told. And all 

 came together at the railway crossing or after the next fifty 

 acres, when hounds hovered a few seconds at the first whole- 



some oxer. (I never forget a fence, I must interpolate. I can 

 go back to this fence for one of my very earliest reminiscences 

 and still see Charles Payn, Captain English, Rev. W. Benn, 

 and Mr. R. Fellowes, all taking it in their stride, but everyone 

 leaving a pair of hind legs behind him. For, unaltered to this 

 day, it has its first ditch, its hedge and ox-rail, and then its 

 second ditch. Yet I saw no loose horses thereat this afternoon, 

 for the timber broke honestly, after Mr. Goodwin and his bay 

 mare had left it intact, and the farther ditch was well cat tie - 

 poached. For Heaven's sake don't clean it out, my lord, against 

 our next coming !) The following fence, if I remember right, 

 was very much akin ; but the rail only yielded to the weight of 

 threescore years and a short-backed sorrel. (How these fathers 

 of families forget their responsibilities, when hounds really run, 



