3IO THE BEST OF THE FUN 



And now I will endeavour to tell you of the run as far 

 as I could see of it, and can remember of it this morning. 

 (It ought, perhaps, to have gone down on paper last 

 night : but for the life of me I could not forego the delight 

 of a reverie, the joy of riding the gallop over again upon a 

 smoke-cloud, then to retire to bed upon a dream.) 



I remember we all trotted peacefully out of the road 

 after Goodall, that the little ladies screamed into their work 

 immediately, and that the broad back of our future M.P. 

 and the neat forms of the Drage brothers were at once in 

 prominent pilotage, assuring us of the absence of wire 

 where the hedges are laid so trimly and the flickering sun- 

 light threw a haze across one's vision. Here I must in- 

 terpolate the fact that, throughout this cheery gallop, we 

 were scarcely once baulked by wire (the single instance I 

 shall name by-and-by excepted). Almost every farmer in 

 the district had taken down his summer fencing ; and 

 much of this good result, I may be permitted to add, we 

 owed to the personal exertions of Mr. Fenwick and Mr. J. 

 Darby, of Hilmorton. Often and often as one approached 

 a fence — in itself of quite sufficient proportion — one dared 

 hardly " loose off " till the last stride, seeing the wire posts 

 and peering in dread of the wire. 



For a mile we rode straight for the gorse of Hilmorton. 

 Whether anything headed our fox thence I cannot say, 

 but suddenly he veered to the left, and laying himself out 

 over what the organisers of the Rugby Steeplechases ad- 

 vertise, not without warrant, as " the finest hunting country 

 in the world " — viz. the Crick-and-Lilbourne valley — took 

 us up the centre of it, while he held his head for Yelver- 

 toft. Holloa, sir, how came you here ? If I can't see 

 your face I can swear to your familiar back as you settle 

 down to ride with the pack. C. Mills for a thousand ! 

 Alongside him range Messrs. Fabling and Hetheringlon, 

 with Captain Beach and Miss Fenwick, while a small host 

 are on the right of the boundary fence that bisects the 

 vale. Room for all, each fence to be taken at many 

 points ; and the pace, though not so hot as it will soon 

 become, is yet sufficient. 



Our fox would, I think, have turned again on a shorter 



