2 14 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



upon fair young countenances. " Bless their pretty faces," 

 as the Immortal One would have put it from his stand- 

 point of fatherly licence, " they will never get such a 

 chance again ! " So who shall grudge them the funny 

 spectacle, or their delighted mirth ? 



After extrication — a matter of time in some individual 

 instances — the " merry chase," as we are prone to call it, 

 went on by the brookside towards the Rugby Steeplechase 

 Course. Soon it recrossed the water, and soon ensued 

 the second, and very similar, scene of the watery play. 

 The survivors galloped a mile to the right, then a mile back 

 to the left, and a few minutes later their fox was lost near 

 Mr. Muntz's spinney by the steeplechase course. Well, it 

 was a warm, sunny day, so wet garments mattered little. 

 And, had it not been for the wire-netting (unfortunately 

 left up round the new gorse at Bunker's Hill), we might 

 have had a drying gallop from that honoured covert. A 

 fine, bright fox could not get clear of hounds. 



I had not room in my Tipperary letter for them, so must 

 crave permission to append here these two instances of 

 instinctive love of hunting, such as may have been found 

 to exist in England, but is hardly likely to have been thus 

 exemplified anywhere but in Ireland. One day last week 

 a field of horsemen, in the full heat of chase, came dashing 

 along a road, overtaking a farmer on his way to plough. 

 He was riding one horse and leading another. The led 

 horse broke away in the turmoil, turned out with the first 

 riders over a big dyke and bank, and went clattering on, 

 with the chains dangling noisily. " If that's the way of it," 

 shouted the farmer, " devil a bit of ploughing will I do 

 to-day ! " And out of the road he turned too, the three 

 of them going the whole run to the finish ! 



The second occurred some little while back in the 

 same district. My informant (an unimpeachable authority) 

 was making his way to a meet, when he overtook a 

 countryman walking beside his cart and a heavy load of 

 coals. " Where might the meet be, yer honour ? " asked 

 the man. At Ashbourne, he was told. "At Ashbourne, 

 is it? That's where I'm going. And will the dogs be 

 there ? Sure, I've not been to a meet these many years. 



