36 THE BEST OF THE FUN . 



great meets, the source of more great runs than, perhaps, 

 any spot in the time-honoured map of the White-Collar 

 Hunt. Yet from Lilbourne Gorse it is more difftcult for a 

 fox to make his point, and for the atoms of an overwhelm- 

 ing field to do themselves justice, than from anywhere 

 else at which I have assisted to make a crowd. I won't 

 descant at length upon the why and wherefore. But, 

 the field make their approach by one side, up a little 

 mud lane. Arrived at the Gorse, they are blocked ; and 

 so is that side of the covert, while on the opposite is a 

 river, a railway, and a road containing all the residents 

 of three neighbouring parishes, and all the very many 

 "hunters" whose forefather was Macadam. How a fox 

 ever gets out of the squeeze has remained a puzzle to 

 me since first I rode a Shetland pony. How we ever 

 get after him and hounds, is a question that has a very 

 disturbing effect on some hundreds of breasts each time 

 that the Pytchley draw Lilbourne Gorse. To-day we 

 solved it, as we did at Dunsmore, at Hilmorton Gorse, 

 as we did at Crick Gorse, and as we did at Yelvertoft 

 Fieldside (I enumerate all these, as I have not the slightest 

 intention of dragging you to them in detail on this scent- 

 less day) by playing at stag-hunting. We hunted the 

 fox ourselves — "heads up and sterns down," if only 

 some one sinner loosed off at a canter. If not, we put 

 our noses down demurely, and worked it out at a walk. 

 Of course we all knew we were wrong. But if you 

 suppose for a moment, sir, that the most orthodox sports- 

 man who ever talked scientific fox-hunting would be such 

 an ass as to stand still alone, while two hundred of his 

 immediate contemporaries (of his own kidney, jealous, 

 openly as women, jealous in their hearts as very men) get 

 between him and the next gate, or the next gap, why, 

 bring him to me, and let him allow me to crown him 

 with a laurel wreath, and show him in the market-place 

 of Warwick and Northampton for this one Christmastide 

 only, that all who ride in scarlet and in black may learn 

 there is more virtue in self-control than in prostration 

 before the Juggernaut of authority. But, all foolery 

 apart, to-day we wanted our Master, or (in his unavoid- 



