THE PYTCHLEY FROM HEMPLOW 31 



is likely to fall to our lot, and that to-day has held another 

 little portion of your share. I speak only for the luckier 

 dogs of the day — about half the field, perhaps — who hap- 

 pened to be below the Hemplow Hills when the run of 

 the afternoon began. The others will have their turn 

 to-morrow, or next day, or next week. Then, as they 

 have often done before, will they sit down that evening 

 — glad of their lot, and for the moment " envying no 

 man anything." 



I am far from intending to exaggerate the virtues of 

 Wednesday's run. I have seen, possibly, many a better. 

 But fox-hunting would rank even higher than it does if 

 one never saw a worse. It began with some twenty- 

 five very excellent minutes over a charming country, and 

 our fox eventually beat hounds at the end of an hour. 

 (A muggy hot day, a Scotch mist, and at last a fair 

 scent.) 



They had just killed their first fox of all, having 

 hunted him from Yelvertoft Fieldside and tired him out 

 round the wooded sides of the Hemplow — he an enter- 

 priseless one. Another jumped up from the bushes to 

 watch his comrade's obsequies; the rites were abruptly 

 closed, and attention was instantly turned to the new 

 comer. The second whip signalled his going, from about 

 the bottom rung of what we know as Jacob's Ladder, that 

 greasy staircase leading down the Hemplow side at about 

 the steepest point. Thither Goodall took hounds at once, 

 then stopped and turned to blow " Forward — Away " again 

 and again. Unfortunately a mass of good sportsmen on 

 the hilltop had no means of grasping the situation ; they 

 knew a fox had been killed, and they merely associated 

 the tantara with the ceremonial of the worry. The Master, 

 indeed, having just previously been thoroughly soaked in 

 a wet ditch, had retired into Hemplow House for a hurried 

 (and not unpicturesque) change of garment. (Two others 

 of our number, by the way, have been nearly drowned 

 during the week past.) I could make quite a catalogue 

 of good names to show how widely and undeservedly ill 

 luck extended, but this is not my province. I may go 

 on to say that hounds started not so rapidly but that all 



