2i6 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



a change of kit in one's own dressing-room, another hour's 

 hunting, another change, back to Westminster — first man 

 at the latch-end of the division-gate to-night. Who shall 

 say that our legislators do not deserve well of their 

 country ? 



But, alas ! that he missed the gallop of which I shall 

 tell. 



It began at Cawston Spinnies, and most of us began 

 wrong, having to circle the coverts to get to hounds upon 

 an area of wet plough. Yet it worked out well for them 

 and for us. (I attempt no more classical form of descrip- 

 tion while the midnight cigar lights the recent past and 

 illuminates the near to-morrow. And oh, Mr. Printer, 

 while I think of it, that was your Latin, not mine, that 

 decorated my last letter from the Grass Countries. I 

 accept your hint, diabolical as it was. You shall have 

 nothing but crude, unadorned English in future.) 



These Dunsmoor fields were all fresh ploughed, and 

 long ago were deeply ditched. As we rode them, close 

 upon hounds — lo ! there was a little red fox scuttling the 

 hedgeside a hundred yards before them, a new comer, 

 probably. And which they ran I can't tell you, for the 

 two lines joined, and the pack pressed on by the left of 

 Bilton Grange. " Of all abominations and sources of dis- 

 comfort," some enterprising man advertises ; give you a 

 tall hat, say I. And as self-respect rebels against riding 

 without one — why, get off and be ridden over, and serve 

 you undeniably right ! So much by parenthesis. 



Hounds dashed over the wet tillage in the cool of the 

 evening ('twas nearly four o'clock when they had found), 

 and soon, taking a happy line wholly unusual, they were 

 " full speed ahead " upon the grassy vale of the Dunchurch 

 Brook. Perfect ground they picked, as we should choose 

 it who find delight in a flying country — fair timber, fair 

 stake-and-bounds, fair turf, and hounds a bit ahead. Hope 

 we shall find the brook amiable ! But it wasn't. A 

 heavy thorn bullfinch fringed its margin, and we skirted 

 a full field, while one drove headlong into its dark embrace. 

 It will do here ! And it did, though it yawned black be- 

 neath a double veil of thorns. 



