i-jd THE BEST OF THE FUN 



road of posts and rails levelled by Mr. Darby, as an outlet 

 lor side-saddle following. 1 recall a squashed bridle- 

 bridge and gateway, and a nightmare of a dozen flying 

 forms beyond, while Indian file took us over the water — 

 and while Captain Renton, who had overshot the bridge 

 by one fence, was taking his first cut across the well-filled 

 brook, that he jumped no less than three times. On the 

 Flecknoe side of the brook hounds were running parallel 

 — much the same line and quite the same pace as in our 

 great Braunston gallop of five years ago ; and as they 

 swung towards the brook methought I saw a short cut 

 and a chance to regain lost ground. I took it, and very 

 cold it was ! a sentiment that my companion plunger 

 never ceased to reiterate the rest of the day through. Nor 

 did it seem in any degree to mitigate his sense of ill-usage 

 that his horse struggled out the right side (going on without 

 him, it must be added), while my graceless beast scrambled 

 back on to the wrong. Overnight he had sworn he 

 wouldn't take three hundred for the new purchase. Now 

 the former owner may have him back at a discount. 'Tis 

 curious, but no less true, that a very great proportion of 

 our horses don't go half as well to the cry of hounds next 

 morning as they did on the line of that last round before 

 joining the ladies. Isn't it so ? 



Do you suppose that one minute's delay put me out of 

 the battle ? Not a bit of it. I had fallen out of the first 

 fighting line, but I soon found myself among supports and 

 reserves all busily engaged. I was no longer pressing 

 forward in the immediate wake of Lord Spencer, Messrs. 

 Mills (senior, of course, for is not this his special battle- 

 ground ?), Muntz, Graham, Captain Baird, General Clery, 

 and half-a-dozen others. (Men, like race-horses, as in the 

 instance of Lady Rosebery at Liverpool, run best on parti- 

 cular courses.) But, half-a-dozen fields further, I found 

 myself skirmishing busily in the company of some twenty 

 others, some of whom I had only recently left. These 

 were running backwards and forwards to the water's edge, 

 mixed up by twos and threes on the bank, then retiring 

 to disentangle, and after occasionally dropping out — I 

 mean dropping in — one of their number repeating the 



