A ROUGH HOUR WITH THE PYTCHLEY 47 



Then there comes over him, useless though it be, the 

 murderous frenzy of a wild cat caught in a snare. He 

 yearns, perhaps raves, to be hand and throat with the 

 " tiend, or fool," who has thus wantonly trapped him, 

 and likely enough has rent and torn the good hunter now 

 galloping madly in the distance. And this is the sentiment 

 that, in spite of himself, will recur again and again for a 

 dozen hours afterwards. The next instinct is to shake 

 and stretch himself, and to tell off his bones whether any 

 have gone. Finally he will stagger away after his horse, 

 thank from his heart the man who brings the latter to him ; 

 and the while it gradually comes to him that the farmer 

 will probably be as sorry for the mishap as himself, will 

 pull himself together as best he can, in struggling to 

 regain the now distant pack. 



It was not difficult to make up a certain amount of 

 lost ground, in the descent of the hill between Catesby 

 House and its covert of Dane Hole, which latter hounds 

 just passed on a freshening scent. They were over the 

 next brow towards Shuckburgh so quickly that half their 

 field overshot the mark and galloped on towards Hellidon 

 village. One, two, three grass fields, and as many quickly 

 flown fences — then a corner, through which the few couple 

 of white forms were darting and disappearing. A very 

 useful property is a hunting memory. Last year, in a 

 curiously similar run of the Grafton, we were cornered in 

 this very field — a wide oxer hemming us in on the right, 

 a forbidding, fence-girt bottom stopping us in front. It 

 was only in the very angle that we were enabled to pierce 

 the fence and scramble the brook. Mr. Orr Ewing now 

 dashed for it at once, the brown mare landing well 

 beyond rail and water, and turned rightward instanter 

 for the second complication — a trifle of yellow water and 

 a barrier of thorn. But it needed Mr. Murland and his 

 Meath horse to effect the double neatly and properly. On 

 he went then to the next (also a very Irish fence, the 

 Catesby Bottom) with a hundred yards' vantage of his 

 fellows, including at this period the Master, Mr. E. 

 Douglas Pennant — than whom no one saw the whole of 

 this trying run better, if so well — Messrs. Grazebrook, 



