CONTRASTS. 571 



the mental proviso that they might have mistaken a hawk 

 for a cuckoo. But, being very country-bred and born, I pride 

 myself that I know a hawk not only "from a hand-saw" 

 but from a cuckoo. Many, indeed, has been the summer 

 evening of my boyhood that I have sat in the shade of Shawell 

 Wood, to watch the foxcubs come forth to play, and the cuckoo 

 swelling his throat on the bough above me so close that I 

 could mark his every feather. And on the present occasion 

 the mottle-grey bird enforced his identity by darting twice 

 in-and-out of the hedge, almost within whip distance as if to 

 jeer at a man riding in scarlet under a Junetime sun. 



Wednesday i Feb. 25, crept forth from a frost fog again into a 

 bright, almost tropical midday. Indeed, it wanted five minutes 

 to noon when the Pytchley lady pack burst away, with a good 

 fox, from Crick Gorse. Twenty years it put me back at once, 

 to clap eyes on Captain Trotter's familiar back that I used to 

 toil after through the holes he had bored and the timber he 

 had swept away ; his face, his hat, and his vestment eloquent 

 witnesses, as a rule, of the strength of Northamptonshire and 

 the determination of the Coventry captain. Then, as now (if 

 my dates are right), Lord Spencer would be riding close handy 

 guarding his pack from pressure, and regulating the torrent, 

 as scarcely another can with a velvet-gloved hand. And then, 

 as now, Mr. Mills would be riding hard and forward among 

 his many juniors even then. And then but no longer now 

 the pride of position would be held almost invariably by Miss 

 Davy, who for years saw more sport day-by-day than any other 

 of the Pytchley ladies. To-day her place in the front rank was 

 taken by two almost strangers to the Pytchley the one Mrs. 

 Bunbury, riding with all the accomplished confidence she was 

 wont to exhibit with the Grafton ; the other Miss Tennant, 

 whose sphere is more often Melton. And yet another was 

 sampling Northamptonshire a lady from the north countrie, 

 Mrs. Fen wick. If they did not see Northamptonshire at its 

 very best, they saw at least what it can be and often is. 

 A little more pace, and a little less frost in the ground 



