98 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



as not even the Honourable Crasher would have been 

 armed with after one season at Harboro'. Why, the 

 shaft would have made two of my mature and, unambi- 

 tious goads. I am glad I picked it up, else might it have 

 remained to be dug from the ground a century hence, 

 and exhibited as a token of how the aristocrats of im- 

 perial Britain once took their pleasure in the cruel and 

 bloody pursuit of the fox. Now it remains on ofTer to 

 Lord Shrewsbury as fin-de-siede addition to his collection 

 of Instruments of Torture. 



They came out to ride, these young gentlemen, half-a- 

 score of them. And right gallantly did they ride, as 

 young bloods should — hounds the excuse. Some had 

 their own horses ; some had Mr. Hames' ; though how my 

 worthy friend of Leicester-town was to get any profit out 

 of the arrangement I leave it to him to say. Hounds ran 

 just rightly for the occasion — that is to say, they never 

 ran fast enough to give anybody a chance of losing him- 

 self, and yet they ran on over a country that offered every 

 temptation and opportunity. Sufhce it to say, that never 

 in after-life are the young sportsmen in question likely to 

 look back with regret to their " flutter with the Pytchley " 

 of this Friday aforesaid ; never need they number it 

 among the occasions on which that '' bitterest memory 

 of the human soul," as it has been termed — to wit, lost 

 opportunity — has to be reckoned. Take this one instance : 

 a chained gate, hounds just carrying a line but the country 

 good enough for anything, fifty or sixty people remaining 

 to make good the afternoon. You know the gates are 

 strong in our Grass Countries, and we don't jump them, 

 for two reasons — (i) because we are afraid to ; and (2) 

 because, if we jumped one occasionally, our horses might 

 expect to jump them all, which, to say the least, would be 

 awkward, considering how closely we stuff ourselves into 

 these outlets whenever we can reach one. 



But such are not the tenets of Cambridge, nor the 

 teaching of her University. Lord Blandford trotted up, 

 and over, in a moment, as is the habit, I am told, 

 with The Drag. Of course Mr. H. A. Smith, on similar 

 principles, was ready and willing to follow — which he 



