498 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



and each and all of these (not already being contributors) 

 would, I undertake to say, most gladly have put a sovereign or 

 at least half a sovereign apiece into the cap, had it been held 

 out to them. They would thus have been afforded a grateful 

 opportunity of making some return for the rails they might 

 break or the hedges they might knock down. The proceeds of 

 two or three such meets would suffice to pay the whole damage 

 and poultry cost of the Rugby side. 



If sport is a lottery it is never more so than in the month 

 of March. Tuesday began unluckily ; for, with a leash of foxes 

 at Bunkers' Hill, hounds got on to the vixen, while the other 

 two rovers took each a beautiful line across the valley the one 

 for Shuckburgh, the other for Braunston. But better fortune 

 attended the draw of Causton. A good fox took some rousing ; 

 but, once clear of the covert, he never shirked the wind, but 

 took them gaily into it for some three-quarters of an hour. 

 His course was the heath of Dunsmoor (at least I suppose it 

 was a heath, till, finding that corn could be grown at a profit 

 even there, the wise men of their time cut great deep ditches 

 across it and ploughed the land thus drained). This upland 

 plain forms of course the most striking contrast possible to the 

 green level vale to the south of Dunchurch. But there is much 

 sport to be seen over it for all that as to-day furnished by no 

 means a bad example. Hounds ran but slowly for the first two 

 or three miles I was told though, being myself in company 

 with the steadier second horsemen, and a good many others 

 steadier still (" Oh no, we never mention " them), I imagined 

 they were going fast. What a fund of imagination is the 

 proud property of those who ride behind ! So they went on to 

 a little covert dignifying itself with the " high-toned " title of 

 FuJham Wood, where a shepherd dog so they say again 

 chased the fox and turned him leftward to the breeze and to 

 us. By this time I had endorsed the conclusion I have 

 come to long ago, viz., that I should make the worst second- 

 horseman in England for the farther I follow at a pace that I 

 am weak enough to believe my own much-abused varlet adopts 



