2o8 GOOD SPORT 



ride was across a wild, untrimmed country, with 

 spongy grass land, innocent of drainage or high 

 cultivation. Crossing the Great North Road, 

 hounds and Arthur Thatcher disappeared in the 

 dark recesses of that huge oak forest, Morcary 

 Wood. We took the hne of grass outside, riding at 

 best pace for a mile and a half down the side of 

 covert, straining an ear to catch the cry of hounds, 

 whose line could be judged by the pigeons rising 

 from the tree tops. Scent was too good and 

 Thatcher too quick to aUow of the hunted one 

 shaking off his pursuers, but when the huntsman's 

 thoroughbred bay horse emerged from the thicket, 

 he looked as if he had taken a bath in liquid mud. 

 The depth of these rides is proverbial, and how the 

 horse could have come the pace down through the 

 covert and kept on his legs, was little short of 

 miraculous. However, the pack were running with 

 a glorious cry, and had their fox straight as an arrow 

 down wind over the rough grass by Stocken Hall, 

 away for Little Haw Wood. For nearly the whole 

 of the journey there is hardly a sign of any habita- 

 tion, a wild sporting country such as our forefathers 

 loved, with nothing more formidable than a roving 

 bullock to head a fox in his flight. Such a district 

 is never frequented with runners or sightseers, like 

 the fashionable areas, and hounds must hunt for 

 themselves, with little or no chance of the telegraph 

 department being forward to give them a lift. 

 Finding the last-named covert was no place of 

 safety, Thatcher's electrifying cheer as he topped 

 over the fence and got a view was good to hear ! 

 For a mile or more across a stony waste of bad 

 scenting country they persevered, and a good sport- 

 ing gallop of nearly forty minutes in holding going, 

 ended with a mark to ground in an impregnable 



