A MEMORABLE MARCH 339 



these they made their way westward (if this conveys any- 

 thing to minds whose good fortune it has never been to 

 wander in wilderness or forest). Well, I may say at once, 

 towards Misterton and Bitteswell ; and from this they 

 diverged not a yard. It seemed indeed a difficult run in 

 which to secure a reasonable start, even for one whose 

 duties are not half so onerous or distraining as those of 

 a second whip. But hounds held on and held straight ; 

 and the difficulty ought soon to have smoothed itself. 

 These Pytchley Wednesdays, with a scentj soon plane 

 themselves out. Quickly I saw before me the dozen or 

 two whom 1 knew ought to be there ; and then at last I 

 felt my own safety assured. They took me past rocks, 

 and shoals, and shallows, by the landmark of Daniells' 

 Covert. They embarked me upon a fair sea beyond ; and 

 if I quivered for a moment at open water in the offing, it 

 it was no fault of mine, but the danger of an honoured 

 comrade. You ask me who was at the head of the fray 

 while thus they were shooting the rapids. I dare not 

 take ten names, for they were but ten out of fifty of 

 whom I could catch occasional glance ; but over the 

 pretty grazing-grounds 'twixt Lutterworth and Gilmorton, 

 surely Mr. C. Beatty, in fashion familiar here and acquired 

 possibly between the flags, was acting chief pilot ; while 

 such well-known figures as those of Mr. Gordon Cunard 

 and Mr. Charles Mills were (with Goodall, of course) 

 among the most independent dozen ! At any rate I dare 

 to aver, not without pardonable pride in the old mare, 

 that Mrs. Blacklock was, throughout, the leading lady of 

 the merry hunt. Twenty-two minutes to Bitteswell Gorse ; 

 and it was hard indeed upon our huntsman's professional 

 thirst that here his fox should have kept his skin in 

 tact. Hounds were within two hundred yards of their 

 game when, beyond the covert, he took breathing time 

 in a hovel, then popped quietly back into the main 

 earth. 



It is getting late, and his lordship is out on the morrow 

 at Gaydon Inn. I have already, or ought to have, told 

 you that the grass rode as velvet ; and that the plough, 

 of which we had crossed perhaps one piece, perhaps two, 



