A GREAT WEEK 229 



Hensborough Hill, if I have its name rightly, was 

 topped with foot-people : but a bold fox had apparently 

 run through them. (How little we realise the " muck " 

 that a determined fox has to run !) Have you ever 

 watched one threading his way through a country swarm- 

 ing with noisy enemies, all bent on making their presence 

 known to him, and all seeking to drive him from his path? 

 That he can ever make his point at all is no less marvellous 

 than the knack of the Pytchley lady pack to cut through a 

 murderous rush of horsemen. Hensborough Hill is a 

 green pinnacle commanding the country round ; and upon 

 it, directly the news spreads that hounds are about, cluster 

 all the sport-loving foot-folk of the neighbourhood. To- 

 day they had hardly realised the draw soon enough ; for 

 in many instances they had reached no nearer than the 

 adjoining rise of Toft, a hamlet at the back of Dunchurch. 

 Here, however, they had a dog, and caused a check — a 

 check not long enough, however, for the recovery of our 

 only cap, whose wearer accordingly led on with head un- 

 helmed, every grey hair a testimony to a good run seen. 

 For during these sixteen minutes we were at chase-pace 

 upon a delicious country, striving hard to eke out of 

 present occasion all deficiency on the part of the previous 

 Tuesday. And, during those stirring minutes, we had not 

 only encountered a brook (the same one, surely, now I 

 think of it, that earlier in the season tied up a very similar 

 giant), but had also made acquaintance with a fashion of 

 fence that very much obtains in the Midlands towards early 

 spring. This, to describe it brietiy and practically, is but 

 an old hedge made new. Its tall, straggling growers have 

 just been plashed and laid, and a brand-new top-binder has 

 been bent along the top, while all the debris of thorn has 

 been cast into the ditch, to some extent obliterating the 

 latter from view. Altogether its appearance is not entirely 

 unlike that of a cropped and smartened patient in the 

 barber's chair, his neckhole (forgive Midland provincialism 

 in the hurry of writing) not having yet been blown clear 

 by the barber's /Eolian breath. At any rate, not only is 

 the unbreakable binder very apparent in its newness and 

 strength, but the ditch is very vague, and, having probably 



