152 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



conceived ideas, I cannot say ; but, hesitating no longer, 

 the old horse flicked out of the enclosure like a brick, 

 wheeled to the rein immediately, and was in and out of the 

 road ere you could have clapped your hands. Two fields 

 further the pack were at momentary fault ; and henceforth 

 Shipmate behaved as faultlessly as a girl at her chaperone's 

 elbow. 



The sun was now blazing warmly ; the dust lay hot 

 and thick where till recently had been heavy cornfields. 

 Thus pace slackened as we passed the woodlands to the 

 northward of Westbury, and adjacent to the sea (the 

 name of those woodlands I failed to catch ; but they are 

 "full of foxes," quoth the Master, "though the foxes are 

 difficult to drive into the open "). The heat was beginning 

 still further to tell its tale as hounds hunted by Hone's 

 Wood, and by the Queen's County Kennels at East Wil- 

 liston — our fox mercifully choosing an easier line, wherein 

 many a bar was prone and gaps were to be found at last. 



So, nearly to Mineola town or village, within sight of 

 which, and by the side of some standing corn, hounds 

 caught a view, dashed into their fox, and tore him up so 

 quickly that barely a head was left to be given to the 

 stranger. Forty-five minutes the run, from start to finish 

 — a jolly ride, and a stirring experience such as for novelty 

 and for brisk sensation I commend to whoever shall have 

 found Leicestershire slow, Meath pedantic, or the Bad- 

 minton short of foxes and sport. For my part, if the 

 yawning ditches of Meath frightened me last October, the 

 frowning timber of Long Island has this month scared me 

 considerably more. A few more such autumn episodes, 

 and I shall have no nerve remaining even for gentle North- 

 amptonshire. The naked wire of Australia would seem 

 to be the only terror left to sample, and that I am cer- 

 tainly content to leave untried. By the way, were these 

 Mr. Gordon Bennett's schooling grounds, before he took 

 the field in the Melton district ? If so, I no longer 

 marvel at the temerity that led him to over-estimate 

 Riga's capacity at a rasping gate below Ranksboro' Gorse 

 —with consequences, however, less awful than at first 

 appeared. 



