WITH THE BICESTER 187 



I must keep to myself ; but I saw enoui^h to make me smile 

 in my soup and wake laughing from sleep this night. 



Already Mr. Cookson was hauling Paul Jones on to 

 his legs, from what must have been a very narrow escape 

 of a broken back, the stream being of inordinate width 

 and the bank rotten. We meanwhile galloped rightward 

 for an easier spot, struck it comfortably, and with little 

 or no misadventure spurred upward over the firm grass 

 pastures, hoping thus to be carried to Canons Ashby. 

 The sound turf and the strong thorn fences form an 

 exceedingly pretty riding district intermediate between the 

 two hunts, and hounds were now travelling at the pace 

 most proper to its development. 



I have a little method of my own by which I gauge 

 at the time, and seldom fail to remember afterwards, such 

 fences as have made impression upon my cowardly soul. 

 When the appeal has been most terror -striking, it has 

 been my too frequent habit, while not actually giving up 

 everything as lost, yet to prepare myself for the worst, by 

 loosening the grip of my knee as the horse rises, and thus, 

 as it were, getting ready to go, far and freely as may be, 

 directly the turnover shall come. More often than not, 

 of course, it does not come at all ; and then I find myself 

 standing in a fashion that would best become a riding- 

 school recruit — wondering, perhaps, if anybody has wit- 

 nessed the ungraceful exhibition, but taking comfort in 

 the hope that others, too, may have been more than 

 sufficiently occupied in securing their own safety. 



Pardon the digression. I am often obliged to take 

 self as sample, thus to illustrate sensations and incidents 

 common to us all. Now the racing pack had bent again 

 to the right, and were already splashing through the water 

 to the bank we had so recently left, and which appeared 

 so unnecessarily wide-set from the nearer brink, for such 

 volume of water as it is set to carry. The river Charwell, 

 I believe ? 



But, under the influence of the pace, or, it may be, of 

 the fire imparted by one already successful essay, there 

 seemed to be none of the hesitancy that we have often 

 seen, and shared, upon the banks of the Charwell. As I 



