314 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



CHAPTER XLVII 



A CHAPTER OF EXCUSES 



The remarkable gallop of the Pytchley on Saturday, 

 December 23, 1893, is hardly more easy to recount than 

 it was to ride. 



They had met at Charwelton on a perfect hunting 

 morning, had consumed a couple of hours in asserting their 

 rights over the country loaned to the Grafton — « beating the 

 bounds " as it were ; had then returned to the neighbour- 

 hood of Charwelton ; and soon after one o'clock were 

 drawn up in one large grass field while a fox was being 

 ejected from a drain in the next. 



Mr Goodman had chanced to see a fine fox go to 

 ground, as he rode to covert ; and Lord Spencer determined 

 to avail himself of the certainty, rather than risk the waste 

 of further hours in threshing out a country already well 

 hunted. 



I may take Saturday's gallop as illustrating what I said 

 in eulogy of that of the Wednesday previous, from 

 Lilbourne Gorse, viz. that the latter had a charm which a 

 runaway burst has not. Saturday was more than a steeple- 

 chase. It was a match between horses and hounds ; and, 

 under the conditions, hounds had the best of it. They ran 

 away from us. Nobody could live with them through the 

 whole run ; and thus, I assert, ten people went home on the 

 Wednesday with a sweet flavour on their palate to one who 

 drank his wine with gusto on Saturday night. Saturday's 

 was a grand instance of how the little Pytchley lady 

 pack can race, and also of how a stout fox can stand before 

 them. They drove him at top speed for forty minutes ; but 

 whether they were running him or a substitute for the next 

 half-hour, I cannot take upon myself to say. I confess I 

 hoped every minute to see him handled. What right had 

 he in a drain ? He could only have gone there to avoid 

 being hunted — a contingency that, I take it, he will now be 

 more anxious than ever to avoid. 



If the comparison be admissible, there was something 



