FOX-HUNTING IN ENGLAND. 239 



his prospect of having his own way. Still he was 

 in all this, as in his manner of doing his work 

 when he got into the open country, such a perfect 

 counterpart of old Max, who had carried me for 

 two years in the Southwest, that I was at home 

 at once. If I had had a hunter made to order, I 

 could not have been more perfectly suited. 



The meet (North Warwickshire) was at Cub- 

 bington Gate, only two miles from Leamington, 

 and a very gay meet it was. The road was filled 

 with carriages, and there was a goodly rabble on 

 foot. About three hundred, in every variety of 

 dress, were mounted for the hunt, a dozen or so of 

 ladies among them. Three of these kept well up 

 all day, and one of them rode very straight. The 

 hounds were taken to a wood about a mile to the 

 eastward of Cubbington, where they soon found a 

 fox, which led us a very straight course to Prince- 

 thorpe, about three miles to the northeast. 



I had done little fencing for seven or eight 

 years, and the sort of propulsion one gets in being 

 carried over a hedge is sufficiently different from 

 the ordinary impulses of civil life to suggest at 



