340 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



not more, in this gallop, carried as hot a scent as grass, 

 and, as they tell me, it has recently been carrying in Cam- 

 bridgeshire and Essex and such partially-blessed countries. 

 Apropos, please remember of this season, much abused 

 till lately, now fast redeeming itself, that you have never 

 ridden the country with such pleasure and such safety 

 as during the past, almost waterless, winter. Put this 

 against your disappointments, and, moreover, chew the 

 cud of this March for months to come. Its fruit too 

 usually has been as of the Dead Sea, dust and ashes ; 

 this year it is luscious, sufftcient, and invigorating. 



The second run of Wednesday was similar only in 

 pace, and in that respect more so ; we stop for no science 

 of expression when scribbling against time, and for a hunt 

 in the morn. From Misterton Reeds towards Shawell 

 Wood, then clear of the plough to reach Swinford Corner 

 — I believe verily some of those early gallopers reached 

 Stanford Hall, two miles away, ere they realised that the 

 chase had turned for Walcote. Then across the meadows 

 rightward, very fast and very amusing ; I use the term 

 advisedly. The pith and essence of hunting is its amuse- 

 ment, its jollity if you will. Deliver me from any one 

 who would degrade it into a dull, day-by-day penance. 

 My own contingent episode at this period came out of 

 encounter with a herd of lean kine, such as, alas, you 

 may see on every English farm this spring when fodder 

 has been scarce or nil. You might ride clean through 

 one attenuated bullock ; but you cannot ride through a 

 whole bunch of them, especially when, too weak to take 

 notice of the fox's coming, they are still lying down, to 

 dream of the growing grass. The cry of the hounds 

 woke them. I had spied my weak gap in a wall-like 

 bullfinch, and was well on my way through their midst, 

 when they suddenly rose. A phantom heifer knocked 

 me against a spectre bullock ; the bullock fended me off 

 against a shadowy calf ; and, to avoid the last-named, I 

 had to jump at the wall of thorns where least of all I 

 should have dared approach it. A tremendous effort on 

 the part of an animal, whose prominent virtue in life is 

 care for her own safety, and consequently for that of her 



