THE SHIRES UNDER WATER 35 



to ride to hounds, were they ?). But, at the risk of being 

 set down as presumptuous, I beg to withhold my accept- 

 ance of the theory, taken as an absolute, hard-and-fast 

 rule. Wet you want, I grant ; but, for all practical pur- 

 poses of scent and sport, it is just as good below the turf 

 as above it. I maintain (and am possibly repeating my- 

 self in so asserting) that a wet summer is just as effectual 

 towards providing scent as a wet winter — and is, in plain 

 Saxon, a deal pleasanter. We have seen quite as fine, 

 quite as many, and quite as enjoyable runs on the top of 

 the ground as we have when the soundest of turf is fetlock 

 deep. (They never have it deep in Meath, I am told ; 

 and yet there is no better scenting country, nor one more 

 prolific of straight, hard gallops — such as all fox-hunters 

 love, till their nerve fails.) 



In a wet, deep season you are apt to overrate the 

 sport day by day. If there is anything like a scent, 

 hounds can then travel far better than horses ; and even 

 at three-quarter pace you can barely live with them, 

 still less override them. Thus you are obliged to give 

 them room ; and you naturally give them credit for 

 running inordinately fast. Only a good horse in good 

 condition can get through the run at all, and this you 

 are prone to put down to the excellence of the sport 

 rather than to the " villainy of the soil." For the last 

 two or three seasons a comparatively small, light-weight 

 horse could carry you delightfully over the Shires. Now 

 you ask too much of him. He can only do it with 

 difficulty and occasionally, and is an expensive tenant of a 

 stall. 



Another main point that gives grace to a wet winter is 

 the fact that a fox cannot travel nearly so fast, or so far, 

 before hounds when he is bedraggled and dirty, as when 

 he has only to glance over clean, firm turf, with his 

 brush in the air, his glossy fur unsoiled, and the pores of 

 his skin open to the breeze. But whether this may be 

 taken as another argument for or against a wet hunting- 

 season I leave it to you to determine, while I go on to 

 the simple facts of Wednesday. 



The Pytchley met at Lilbourne, the scene of more 



