A MEDLEY AT LILBOURNE. 545 



dent of temperature. We, who are middle-aged and elderly, 

 look our very worst when parboiled. Comfort, workmanlike 

 appearance, and dignity alike forsake us utterly ; and, accord- 

 ing to disposition, the individual is found either ludicrously 

 cross or profusely jovial. The latter aspect, I am proud to 

 assert, chiefly obtained on this piping Wednesday ; and a full 

 Pytchley field was to be seen at its warmest and j oiliest 

 steaming its way through bridlegate and gap, rushing along with 

 coat and habit body flung open (if so be the tailor would per- 

 mit), their faces ruddy, and (in the case of men) their hats 

 almost floating from their heads. I will pursue the picture no 

 further. Have you ever spent a summer in the plains of India \ 

 If so, you remember the melting mood in which, of a hot night, 

 you woke to the fact that the punkah-wallah had ceased his 

 pulling. Such was our condition the day through, and there 

 was not even a punkah-wallah on whom to wreak vengeance. 



The Pytchley, then, met at Lilbourne for perhaps their first 

 crowd of the season. Lord Spencer and his men were on the 

 spot at a punctual 10.45 and the meet proceeded. For a 

 Pytchley- Wednesday-meet is a function. Abbreviation would 

 lead to turmoil and turmoil never begins till a fox is found 

 and away. Amid such a mass of men and women all passing 

 their morning greeting, and amid a mob of horses similar in 

 multitude to that of Rugby's Martinmas Fair now proceeding, 

 it is marvellous that sorting is ever achieved. When each finds 

 each, there is still confusion. A rider who drives up discovers he 

 has more horses than men ; another, who has brought friends 

 upon wheels, has to send his cart home closely packed and a 

 late-comer meeting that cart may be startled and edified by the 

 sight of a bevy of stablemen, fur-clad and cigar- bio wing, whisk- 

 ing homeward an uproarious crew. Jones has got his kicker 

 for his first horse, whereas he had meant to leave his second 

 horseman to bear the protests of which he himself is now 

 deservedly the victim. Smith finds the young one is coughing ; 

 while, on a principle of his own, the old mare has been ordered 

 to leave her stable only at eleven o'clock, that she maybe in full 



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