258 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



with his leave or without it (for I have really nothing to 

 offer in its place) I extract the following : — 



" Heard a good deal overnight about the Grafton 

 country from Bobby Boss- — old schoolfellow, who was to 

 give me a mount next day. Says the grey's a nailer, 

 but makes a bit of a noise, ' doesn't stop him.' Hope the 

 Grafton don't always run forty minutes over the grass with- 

 out a check. A four-mile Point-to-Point I don't mind ; 

 but that's all over in about a dozen minutes. How am 

 I to find my way to covert if Bobby can't come too ? 

 ' Simplest thing in the world,' he says, ' bridle-road quite 

 straight, can't possibly miss it. See, I'll put it down on 

 paper for you.' And Bobby pencilled a line more or less 

 straight upon a sheet of paper, ornamented the sides of his 

 line, or bridle-road, with a few names, and drew various 

 other lines across it which he said I was not to follow. 

 ' What's the good of putting them there, then ? ' I pro- 

 tested. ' Never mind,' retorted Bobby hotly. ' You 

 follow your nose and you'll get to Scotfield Green in good 

 time.' So I did, I am bound to confess, but not by follow- 

 ing my nose. Had it not been for ' the man with a 

 beard' — who picked me up near Blisworth, told me I was 

 steering for Banbury, and then led me through more gates 

 than we open in a month in Essex — I might be wandering 

 about the Duke of Grafton's property still. Bridle-road 

 indeed ! Never again will I be beguiled off the ' hard- 

 high ' in a strange country. For a mile or two before we 

 found ourselves at the meet we were in a rich forest — very 

 civilised and well tended as to rides and glades, it is true 

 — but a forest that they tell me stretches more or less un- 

 interruptedly across Northamptonshire into the heart of 

 Lincolnshire. Whittlewood, or, more commonly, Whittle- 

 bury, is the name of this portion, his Grace's mansion and 

 park of Wakefield (the one under the humble denomination 

 of Lodge, the other that of Lawn) situated in the midst 

 thereof — very picturesque, very sylvan, and, I imagine, 

 exceedingly adapted to spring and autumn hunting of the 

 fox. That the supply is kept up with this view was soon 

 demonstrated. Foxes several times crossed the rides a 

 couple together. One was a grey — they spoke of him as 



