SPORT AT LAST 313 



I have nothing more to add of this gallop, save that I 

 can remember only about three times this line to have 

 been followed at all closely by a fox. Once was when 

 our Prince was out (only then they started from Crick). 

 The last occasion was about six years ago, very late one 

 cold evening. 



1 shall be anxious until to-morrow lest our tired fox 

 should have crept back to the Hemplow, and there been 

 picked up when hounds drew the hills. For, as I left on 

 the old principle of going home (with one horse) when 

 you have enjoyed yourself, I saw hounds feather beneath 

 the hill covert, and speak as they entered it. If that fox 

 was thus caught, it will be a calamity to the Pytchley 

 Hunt. Why, even the butcher of Lilbourne was delighted 

 to hear of his escape. " He's had a many of my fowls. 

 But dang the fowls, says I ; I'm glad he's got off." 



There has, I learn, been frivolling during the past week 

 in Southern Northamptonshire. It is early in the winter 

 for this. But no matter. They have had a Hunt Ball — 

 well organised, well patronised, and well wined. The 

 story goes that among the last to leave the function were 

 two young fox-hunters, returning to one roof in the 

 paternal brougham. Being brothers, they had not much 

 to talk about on the way. Besides, nature at high pres- 

 sure for long, amid such surroundings, relapses easily in 

 happy exhaustion. The younger brother roused himself 

 as the carriage pulled up, slammed the door after him, 

 and entered the ready portal — believing, he avers, that the 

 other had woke up and gone in before. At any rate the 

 good coachman — himself only anxious for his long- 

 deferred bed — quickly had his horses out, backed his 

 carriage into the coach-house, locked it up, and retired 

 to roost. He was not as early as usual in his attend- 

 ance at stables the next morning ; but, when he did 

 come, it was as if all pandemonium was loose in that 

 cool coach-house. Even now, as I am told, it has been 

 found difficult to reconcile the conflicting versions of big 

 brother and little brother — the former averring stoutly 

 that " the young 'un did it on purpose, and all because 

 he owed him one over a certain after-supper dance." 



