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stool. Our roads are roughened in February with an 

 ingenuity that can only be termed devilish. Every loose 

 stone is raked into path and rut, to the confusion of your 

 horse, the ruin of your trap, and with no possibility of 

 benefit to the road, for the granite pieces are merely 

 kicked off again without being absorbed. 



Mr. Ashton, meeting at Wolston, brought his hounds 

 first to Wilcox Gorse ; and, with a fox outlying in the 

 immediate vicinity, treated us to a twenty minutes' gallop 

 of which we all thought much, and made the most. The 

 ditches of Dunsmoor were deep and wide as ever ; but 

 their condition has wholly and happily changed since 

 November. You can now see into them ; and, though 

 the view is not invariably enticing, it admits of guiding 

 your horse where the sailing is plain and his course is 

 obvious. In fact, this deep-dug, awesome plain has lost 

 all its terrors since the snow. Added to which the line — 

 to Ryton Coppice and Ryton Wood (there to ground) — 

 bore evident signs of having been more or less recently 

 ridden, possibly tumbled through. Most of the fences 

 were gapped clean, even to the bottom of the ditches. 



There was a scent, a rare treat in itself. Hounds 

 could drive, and keep us going — keep us out of mischief, 

 if you like to put it that way. For even with the help of 

 gaps there could be no pressing hounds, though, I make 

 bold to assert, there was a field in their wake that, were I 

 master, I should be loth to let for a moment out of my 

 sight. 



Occupying a wholly different position, I had the 

 opportunity from my own standpoint of reaping no small 

 pleasure from the prowess of a single individual, with 

 whose name I will take upon myself to make free. This 

 was in the performance of Mr. Martin, of Catesb}-, who, 

 walking seventeen stone, and here competing with many 

 men seven stone lighter, was gliding over the country 

 in the foremost van, riding fairly to hounds, steadying his 

 horse at each jump in a fashion that half the light-weights 

 would do well to copy, yet taking every fence at his own 

 spot and losing no ground as he went. In truth, it did 

 me good to mark and learn from my yeoman friend. 



