GUY FAWKES' DAY 25 



and wire-girt brook that runs from Wolfhamcote or 

 Braunston to Grandborough, and that threw us all out 

 of the gallop that day. We were to have had a ford, 

 were we not ? No sign of it now. And the field slanted 

 off to the right, to take the canal-side towards Braunston. 

 All but Mr. Vaughan-Williams, who found a feasible spot 

 to get in, and (what was far more to the point) to get out. 

 Next beyond the brook was quite an Irish fence — two 

 ditches, two hedges, and a bank. But his horse was from 

 the Blackmoor Vale, where they teach them something 

 Irish, and he was able to go on in peace. Hounds bore 

 at once to their left, away from Braunston village, away 

 too from their field, and ran parallel to the Dunchurch 

 road. Now they had their heads straight for Bunker's 

 Hill. Here was the arena of the giants of old, who 

 hunted from Dunchurch and steeplechased from Shuck- 

 burgh to Bunker's Hill. Who shall not envy them, except 

 for that their day is over, and ours is not yet wholly spent ? 

 And the country is as good as ever, not a strand of wire 

 (we thank you heartily, good fellows, who farm this 

 glorious district), and not a fence unjumpable. I am not 

 sure of this last, though : for at Willoughby, where fox 

 and hounds ran through a farmyard, and the lucky spec- 

 tator, who happened to be cutting hay on a lofty stack, 

 declared (I am told) that the only possible way of follow- 

 ing them was through the village. However, Mr. Vaughan- 

 Williams was riding to them immediately after ; riding by 

 sight, if not in the same field with hounds. And half-way 

 over the flat, Mr. J. Charters, Lord Willoughby de Broke, 

 Mr. Colquhoun (if I caught the name rightly), Captain 

 Riddell (of whom I may be allowed, for old acquaintance' 

 sake, to repeat what I see and hear, that he has never 

 ridden more brilliantly than in the present autumn), with 

 Captain Follett, Mr. Whitworth, Colonel Fell, Captain Ask- 

 with, and a few others, now got up to, or all but up to, 

 hounds once more. At any rate, they were with them as 

 the pack drove on at once through Bunker's Hill Covert 

 (fifty minutes from the find), and went away for Dun- 

 church. Why — is not this the very anniversary of the 

 " Bloody Hunt of Dunchurch " ? After such a happy 



