WITH THE MEADOWBROOK HOUNDS 375 



Mr. Wintlnop's house. A momentary check brought all 

 the lielci together ; Murphy jumped off to unchain the 

 lane-gate, into the road, horsemen threaded their way 

 through the stream of carriages, and hounds went oif 

 again at cry. Now for a fair sample of Long Island. 

 Look right and look left. No escape. Each twenty- 

 acre field is bound round with these great morticed 

 fences, and gates are as little known as in the Green 

 Island beyond the ocean. One spot is altogether the 

 same as another ; our leader follows in the track of 

 hounds ; and the first four-footer is flown without rap 

 of hoof, or even refusal. The second is like unto it, but 

 may claim a few inches more, with the advantage or other- 

 wise of a slight drop. Ah, what a delightful sensation ! — 

 the bound of a free-going horse, eager for his jump and 

 careful of his stride. 'Tis like a gasp of mountain air 

 again, that one breathes in the few seconds of that voyage 

 aloft. I have always held that a fair pace at timber is 

 best and safest, as it certainly is most pleasurable. I find 

 my theory endorsed again and again among the timber 

 jumpers of America. See Mr. Griswold there (whose 

 performance in this direction 1 have learned to regard as 

 almost phenomenal) taking the wooden barricades at a 

 steady gallop, his horse pulled together for each fresh 

 effort, but the pace seldom checked, and a fall so seldom 

 scored that to-day's instance, later on, was regarded as 

 almost unique. 



But meanwhile a clatter and a crash proclaim loudly 

 that a liberty, sure to be resented, has already been taken by 

 some reckless quadruped. Sure enough, Mr. Page's young 

 mare, after rolling over her white-clad rider and leaving 

 him with a broken collar-bone, is to be seen careering past 

 hounds to join a bunch of colts in a mad gallop round the 

 enclosure (bad luck for a good man, on this the first day of 

 a brief season. But defend me, for one, from ever 

 attempting the Long Island country on a "green horse ! "). 

 Forward still for the others, the lady on Retribution 

 holding her own gallantly, over a stronger line than 1, at 

 least, ever rode in our English Shires ! Look here ! Four 

 massive rails into a narrow road — along it, not twenty 



