94 



THE BEST OF THE FUN 



A cool morning, and a warm midday. I need not detain 

 you with a long recital — of how they killed a brace of 

 foxes without much sport, after hunting another very 

 pleasantly from Misterton to Churchover, where a village 

 sheep-dog spoiled the finish. 



They very nearly began the day with a goodly gallop ; 

 but at that early hour of the morning the shepherds were 

 — they tell me — still counting their sheep, and our fox was 

 met face to face. I am told further — and this is a very 

 much more serious argument against a 9.30 meet — that 

 the local bone-setters insist they cannot possibly get free 

 at such an hour, and that we may just make up our minds 

 to bind up each other. I am loth to trifle with a subject 

 so unattractive : but I am not superstitious (unless it may 

 be under the threefold combination of a single magpie, a 

 9.30 meet, and a wholly undue allowance of tobacco over- 

 night), else would I, apropos of broken bones, have turned 

 straight homeward one day very recently. First cheery 

 friend, seeing me mounted on a horse more familiar to him 

 than to me, " Holloa, I wonder how you will get on with 

 that quad ! He put Willie Plunger's shoulder out for 

 him ! " Second good-natured and disinterested friend 

 immediately afterwards, noticing the leather stops that 

 kept my martingale in place upon the brute's bridle rein, 

 '' I say, those are dangerous things. They are always get- 

 ting caught, and poor Jackson was carried in consequence 

 clean over the cliff at Brighton ! " 



I did not allow myself to be choked off my ride, and 

 driven to seek an antidote in Rudyard Kipling ; but on 

 the other hand I did not allow myself to be mounted on 

 that horse again (he was not my own, please). And this 

 is a true story — if not very strictly to the point. 



" Did ye catch him ? " asked the village carpenter, as we 

 turned homewards. " Didn't ye now ? " he added in 

 half disdain and half raillery. " Then, ye'd ought to ha' 

 ma-ade more ha-aste ! " 



You may be aware that various and well-sustained 

 efforts have of late years been made to naturalise in Eng- 

 land the pure-bred Arab, the original source of our best 

 racing stock. It has even been attempted to make what 



