294 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



practicable and sound. I gather that the regular members 

 of the Hunt give preference to other, more open, ground. 

 Personally I like the Ballylennan neighbourhood — not 

 only because, with its heavy, bushed hedges it looks more 

 like Northamptonshire, but because these hedges are set on 

 broad, fair banks, upon which a horse has time to perch 

 himself in safety, and you to consider what will happen 

 next. I like far less those crumbling barriers from which 

 you may, or may not, reach the ground as you left it, 

 and at best are likely to reach it with a dull, dead jar 

 against your backbone. There are always one or two 

 holes in these thorny growths ; and, if hounds be only 

 going fast enough, it is not difficult to spot and to 

 pierce them with decent safety. Northward of Bally- 

 lennan, and less than a mile away, is the rough covert 

 of Kyle, standing on a rise of ground overlooking the vale 

 aforesaid, as, for instance, Clawson Thorns overlooks the 

 Vale of Belvoir, to which, in its general aspect, this Vale 

 of Ballylennan is not altogether dissimilar. An open 

 bridle-road, and a fox with his head for Kyle, not at all 

 unnaturally suggests to every one that this covert must be 

 the immediate point ; and as with life so with fox-hunting, 

 its only certainty is the unexpected, the assumption fell 

 through, the odds were upset, and some of the best men 

 of the hunt were thrown out. A man on a hayrick 

 turned the fox by screaming at him as he came, the 

 intervening farm buildings shut hounds out of view, and 

 in half a minute all the mischief was done. The chase 

 had turned leftward, and was now crossing this flat and 

 glorious valley at racing pace, with the Master (upon 

 Newtown, whose presence in the field would seem ever 

 to insure a gallop), Mr. D. Scully (upon " the Slug "), Mr. 

 Maclean, Mr. Dawnay, Mr. Walker (enjoying his first good 

 ride in Tipperary), Sir John Power, Major Hatchell, and 

 the brothers Hughes in attendance. 



At first hounds swung back almost to Ballylennan 

 Covert ; then they dashed forward straight for the gorse of 

 Drangan, Mr. Maclean's light grey being the only beacon 

 perceptible as it quivered through openings in the interven- 

 ing hedges. No, not the only guide. A single hound that, 



