THE EARLIEST CUT 169 



Lord Spencer was unable to be present to-day, and 

 tlie same was the case with the Hon. Secretary. Of the 

 rest I will endeavour to attach some few names below, but 

 first let me tell you of what sport took place ; for, please, 

 I am writing with head up and stern down, inasmuch as 

 duty calls me to Shuckburgh on the morrow. 



The grand supply of foxes that has ever distinguished 

 Misterton suffers no diminution at the hands of Mr. Bam- 

 ford, the new proprietor. And for an hour hounds rang 

 the changes from covert to covert, i.e. from The Reeds to 

 Shawell Wood. The early morning had been cold and 

 frosty, and the advent of a bright, warm sun had led to 

 the natural result of such conditions — no scent. Thus 

 till noon, when the long plantation known as Thurnboro' 

 Spinney was drawn. One fox chopped, a second away, 

 but driven back to The Reeds, thence to break again by 

 Walcot village and across the brook northward. 



So convinced were most of us that with our cub hunt- 

 ing costume we had brought a day of dawdling and fox- 

 schooling, that now we were more or less asleep. And, 

 even when hounds seemed to be running on, it took time 

 to rouse us from our comatose state, the more so that the 

 knowledge of blind fences and the possibility of wire 

 weighed heavily upon our slowly awakening senses. 



Not so Mr. Foster and Will Goodall, who were on 

 with the pack as sharply as if three hundred scarleted 

 after-Christmas horsemen were pursuing them from Lil- 

 bourne to Crick. Grateful were we — grateful indeed was 

 I, and so I presume were others in whose souls thL- fear of 

 wire has been inculcated — that these twain demonstrated 

 how little, if any, wire existed in the neighbourhood. They 

 jumped into none ; and we, of course, followed safely 

 afterwards. A good horse will carry a very moderate man 

 right up in a run, if only he has a pilot sailing smoothly 

 in front of him. And so, I tell you, they made it easy 

 for many of us, who might have looked a long time 

 before taking first plunge through a dark veil of leaf and 

 thorn into the possible clutch of cold and sharp-pointed 

 ron. 



From my point of vantage I could see the fun 



