238 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



between them had given the bridle-path ahnost a faggot 

 paving ?) Then a shepherd on the steep hilltop waving 

 his hat, while the little ladies screamed by him in 

 mad endorsement. Another dip, another rise ; then 

 Tableau II. Lord Southampton, John, and two others 

 sweeping abreast over the Staverton Bottom — a vague, 

 hedge-covered watercourse — while to their right Mr. C. 

 Beatty made the way plain, with Miss Fen wick at his 

 heels. Miss Czarnikov's chestnut dropped short and fell 

 back with apparently a broken back. (It was not so, 

 I am glad to add, though the horse was sadly lamed.) 

 Hounds were up the next hill faster than horsemen, and 

 at the little double fence half-way Mr. Weatherby's old 

 favourite dropped from heart disease. (How could a 

 hunter of twenty seasons die better ?) No. III. Hounds 

 swinging to the right across the lane forming the 

 Staverton and Braunston bridle-road, Mr. Graham and 

 Mr. C. Adamthwaite, and Lord Southampton, keeping 

 well up the slope with them, the two former jumping 

 into the lane, all three issuing by a gate. And these 

 three, avoiding the crowd of the lane, and thus well 

 placed to swoop into the vale below (the vale across 

 which the House of Commons' Point-to-Point was run 

 two years ago), had all the best of the chief minutes 

 of this tremendous race after hounds. Mr. Murland, 

 clear on the right, at the same time made excellent 

 use of the lower ground. On the other hand, if you 

 turned into the lane a moment too soon, there were fifty, 

 it may have been a hundred, people blocking the line ; 

 and for three fields it was follow-my-leader where a leader 

 was, I had nearly written, hateful (as he or she took time 

 to jump and wanted time for a possible fall). There are 

 only two men, in my knowledge, who can extricate them- 

 selves with certainty at such a juncture. These are the 

 Quorn huntsman and the Pytchley huntsman of the 

 present, and, please God, many a future day. How 

 they do it I know not — else would I gladly take a lesson 

 and strive thankfully to imitate — unless it be that, while 

 one of them has the most marvellous knack of galloping 

 between his fences and of marking a new outlet for him- 



