12+ SKETCHES IN THE HUNTING FIELD. 



and bounding stride is so smooth and easy, she skims 

 the inequalities of the field so gently, plays with her 

 bit so good-temperedly, and answers every touch of 

 the rein so willingly — altogether a hunter in a thou- 

 sand. 



The exercise restores the healthy glow to a half-frozen 

 body. Plngers may still be cold, but on such a glorious 

 mare as this he must indeed be an ungracious churl who 

 would find fault with wind, weather, or any sublunary 

 ills ; and besides, in advance of us trot eighteen couple 

 of hounds. The Huntsman has abandoned the thick 

 furs for the glories of green and gold, and down the 

 lane we merrily trot with a joyful expectation of what 

 is to come. 



The hounds turn in at a gate and trot gaily towards a 

 covert to the left ; the Master, some half-dozen horsemen 

 with him, follows a little way and checks his horse, 

 while the bulk of us wait for what is going to happen 

 next. And we have not to wait long. The Master 

 takes his horse by the head and gallops on in answer to 

 the halloa which has rung through the keen, shar]3 air ; 

 some of the field crash through the hedge, others crowd 

 through the gate, and we are away with a vengeance at 

 a rattling pace. The ' story of a fox lying out in the 

 hedge was true enough, and if he proposes to lie out in 

 a hedge any more — or elsewhere, for the matter of that 

 — he must run for it to-day. 



Away we stream over the pastures and over a ploughed 

 field by way of a change, my enthusiasm for the mare 



