262 Hunting Countries of England. 



ones rather than banks, and that these banks should 

 be sound instead of rotten. But they aver them- 

 selves " thankful for small mercies " ; and are content 

 that, if from this style of obstacle they fall often, at 

 least they fall soft. The banks are wide and thickly 

 planted ; so that a horse should wade, and push, as far 

 as he can, before preparing himself for a spring over 

 the ditch, which may be deep enough to bury him and 

 broad enough to take in two at a time. Between the 

 woods the enclosures are small ; and you are hardly 

 in one of them before it is time to be out again — and 

 then you have to choose as quickly as possible where 

 your hindlegs will stick least,^ and where they will 

 land on soundest ground. There is nothing airy even 

 in first flight, over the South Berkshire Vale ; though 

 the pleasure is often rich and satisfying, as pudding to 

 a schoolboy. 



In the Old Vine Country the principal meets of the 

 South Berks nowadays are — Silchester Dials for 

 Pamber Forest, which, though much reduced, is still 

 an immense jungle tract of hazel and oak sapling, 

 sedgey and thick withal. Foxes there are here ; but 

 they are seldom young— -an anomaly we must leave to 

 others to explain. Farthest on the outside of the 

 borrowed territory is Pamber End Gate, or Beaure- 

 paire Park_, to draw Beaurepaire Grully, or Newlands 

 and Cranes, Grocus and Pepper Wood, all well pre- 

 served and faithful. From Bramley Village they have a 

 good covert in Bramley Frith; and afterwards work back 

 to Silchester. Aldermaston Village more often comes on 

 a Thursday; gives them Pace's Gully, Wasiug Wood 

 and Burnhams ; or takes them eventually into the fir 



