FIRST SCORES 175 



Saturday night should be good enough for such 

 memoranda as the Field is good enough to accept as 

 sufficient service, from amid the hardships and labour 

 inseparable from the chase of the fox. Since dinner I 

 have lingered over the day ; I have studied the night, and 

 the North Star, twinkling dimly in a warm, quiet heaven, 

 assures me confidently of a hunting week. I am sensible 

 of a happy day ; and I am old enough to take each added 

 item gratefully — counting it as one more bead to my roll, 

 to be spelt out in aftertime, or be buried with my spurs. 

 Have I not heard Will Goodall enliven covert with his 

 '' Yuic-Yuic-Yuic " {crescendo) ? Have I not spurred to 

 John's " Yarry-Yarry ! Away ! Away " ? and have 1 not 

 been to the bottom of Braunston Brook ? — all three details 

 very becoming to, and in keeping wath, a proper day's 

 sport with the Pytchley. Now it is my pleasant task to 

 pen you a note or two — sketching for my owai amusement, 

 while craving acceptance and indulgence from you. If not 

 done to-night, it will be blurred by to-morrow and 

 forgotten by next day. 



I am tempted to begin in the middle — at Braunston 

 Gorse — an old theme, and one that 1 don't mind confess- 

 ing that 1 never followed less successfully in action than 

 to-day. But that is my business, unless that thereby 1 fall 

 short in my duty as raconteur to you. Braunston Gorse, 

 then — the navvies about, and the gorse therefore a reputed 

 uncertainty. But a fox afoot, and a fox in the right 

 direction, over that beautiful landscape that is intersected 

 by the Braunston Brook. How we did rush and ride as 

 we set forth over the two great anthilly fields of grass — 

 the Master at last in personal authority ! Then hounds 

 turned leftward before reaching the water (though for that 

 matter there were customers over, and craners bridging 

 the brook already). A first bullfinch, a second corner — a 

 boggy take-off, and an apparently broken-necked horse (I 

 withhold sympathy till I know whether it was a lapsed spinal 

 cord or mere cussedness that kept him across the only 

 practicable path). Three hundred yards to gallop round ! 

 You who know the scene will recognise the crucial 

 moments thus haplessly lost. Then 1 remember a whole 



