50 HOUND AND HOEN ; 



boggy. On the day in question we got a fox away 

 towards Bedwin Brails and across Burridge Heath — 

 a place fit for nothing but wild hunting or shooting, 

 and the latter principally snipe. A former steward to 

 the Marquis of Ailesbury (we give no names) thought 

 probably to enrich the noble o^Tier by trying to reclaim 

 the land on Burridge Heath, and convert it into arable 

 and pasture. Poor man ! I Avished, that day, he had 

 attempted to farm the shores of the Dead Sea. But it 

 had this effect, it converted Burridge Heath into a 

 regular trap for horses, as it was a network of under- 

 drains, and those, too, pretty deep. 'Tis not pleasant 

 galloping across these with hounds running, even where 

 they are distinctly visible in pasture ; but when the 

 plough has nearly effaced them, it is — we don't approve 

 of strong language, so we will say — not heavenly. The 

 Craven, then, were running across Burridge Heath 

 towards the Brails, and having cleared all the drains 

 over the s^rass without accident, the writer of these 

 memoirs (for once) was really enjoying a sticky plough, 

 where he thought the ground was nothing more than 

 holding, when in a moment his horse was on his head, 

 and he himself on the broad of his back in something 

 like a cross between soft soap and railway grease. 

 Confound the drains ! The}^ had been carried across 



