524 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



that the up express was about due. So, fleeing from that, he 

 set spurs Londonway and held the embankment at speed as it 

 flashed across him that the Birmingham mail would leave 

 Rugby within the hour. Had it been in November, the pre- 

 dicament would not have been so grave for at least he would 

 have been wearing his own danger-flag, in a coat as yet in Mr. 

 Walding's hands. But in a wet shooting-jacket there was no 

 hope. Not a moment was to be lost. And so thinking (we 

 suppose) he clapped spurs to his too-intelligent beast, and went 

 hard for Rugby Station " thence to box himself home," ex- 

 plained the chief wag among the spectators. The kind Un- 

 known must extend his indulgence yet farther, and forgive my 

 having thus retailed Tuesday's only mirthful incident by flood 

 and field. 



Only on Tuesday, October 21st, did Northamptonshire begin 

 in any degree to accommodate itself to the requirements of fox- 

 hunting. A ride forth that afternoon brought the comforting 

 assurance that the turf was no longer wholly a green rock bed. 

 The drizzle of overnight, following upon the day's rain of a 

 week ago, found a greeting in the yielding ground, and every 

 raindrop told while the russet and gold of a lingering autumn 

 lightened the scene. In fact, it looked, and felt, far more like 

 hunting than it has yet been this fall. No alternative but to 

 hurry home, and order a box for the morrow. I confess to 

 being averse, and unwont, to take train in the month of 

 October. But we have had no hunting ; life is very short ; and 

 a season is shorter still. What has it been hitherto ? Walking 

 about on a pony while a cub has been killed. (Even the foxes 

 are backward this autumn of 1890.) And the interval days 

 have been spent by hunting men (by which I mean the men 

 who grudge every day that is lost and would rather see one fox 

 handsomely killed than e'en " twice twenty cock pheasants ") 

 in mutual commiseration, in dawdling preparation, and in fitful 

 occupation such as best becomes a frost. That the season is 

 approaching was evident in every corner of westward London 

 last week. Men, whose line of life is unmistakably the chase, 



