580 FOX-HQUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



sward towards Staverton. Not so their hapless followers. The 

 Master was first pulled off his horse, then a lady, and then 

 there were men in the water and horses running up and down 

 the stream. Some then turned their attention to jumping: 

 but that it takes very few feet of water to frighten the hunters 

 of the grass countries, or even to put them down, was quickly 

 instanced by refusals and falls. No help for it. The subjugated 

 host had to pass under the yoke as best they might ; and a 

 season of confusion and dismay ensued that baffles at least my 

 feeble powers of description. There were men wading and 

 splashing and shouting: and womenkind shivering hopelessly 

 on the brink till a happy thought occurred to the latter, and, 

 more or less reluctantly, was generally acted upon. A single 

 plank, close at hand, stretched across the stream. The ladies 

 with one accord made themselves into mounted infantry, left 

 their horses to be whipped or led through the horrid chasm 

 and a minute later Busvine, Scott, Hohne, and every other 

 known builder of safety skirt, were being gathered and hurried 

 in single file across the bridge. When they reached the other 

 side, so many loose horses, saddled and side-saddled, were in 

 stream or just out of it, that it took several minutes to sort 

 them. For my own part, as owner just now of only one at 

 all passable hat, I was glad to follow the example thus 

 set: and, my odd-job man appearing at that moment with 

 a second horse, I loosed him off at the outlet to ride one and 

 lead another, while I acted on the good old principle of " going 

 round " in leisurely safety. Needless to say, that as usual he 

 turned up smiling having left nothing behind him in the 

 willow- tree but his cockade and his collar, both of them well- 

 worn properties, and already, he assured me, ripe for renewal. 



But it was not a nice day on which to get wet, even to the 

 knees, as more than one good fellow acknowledged, when later 

 in the day he found himself a mark for the north-east wind on 

 the Staverton Hill to the refrain of 



Oh willow, willow, willow ! 



Siiig, oh the greeue willow shall be my garland. 



