FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 219 



the bone, and stiff to the marrow, I have rarely 

 been more exuberant than when I gradually re- 

 gained the use of my legs in the half-mile walk 

 to the hotel, resolving that not even the glories 

 of American citizenship should ever keep me 

 away from England in winter were I only able 

 to afford the luxury of regular hunting. But 

 the exuberance was moral rather than physical. 

 I had not been so tired for years, — stiff as an 

 old horse, after over thirty miles of really hard 

 riding (the last seventeen miles in two hours). 

 The cure was a hot bath and a dish of hot soup, 

 followed by a log-like sleep of two hours on a sofa 

 before a blazing hot fire, a sharp half-hour's walk, 

 a very plain dinner, and a couple of hours' chat 

 with my interested East-Indiaman in the smok- 

 ing-room : the cure was complete ; and all that 

 was left of the day's sport was its brilliant rec- 

 ollection. 



My second day was near Stratford-on-Avon, — 

 on Ay-von, the misguided English call it. The 

 meet was to be at Goldicote House, one of the 



