PYTCHLEV HORDEKLAXI) 389 



another pack of hounds. In the pretty playground is 

 inckided a tract, Nortliampton and WelHngboro', that 

 might almost carry a two days' pack of its own. Popu- 

 larity and wire are the two destructive agents that are 

 rapidly killing fox-hunting. These have but a thin grasp 

 upon Monday's more provincial side of aristocratic Pytch- 

 leydom. Don't go there, gentlemen ! 'Tis difficult of 

 access, and assumes a virtue of provincialism that it does 

 not, save for its modesty, possess. The accident of scent 

 counts for nothing. We had it up our sleeves in the 

 north-east wind as we drove into it this morning, and 

 were blue and cold at covertside. 



There was a vigour of scent to own and to appreciate 

 wlien in the afternoon hounds started on a fox from 

 Orlingbury. Vulgar country, I assure you — at least so 

 I am prompted. But it was very ploughy indeed, as far 

 as Cock-a-hoop or Cock-a-leeky, or some such plough- 

 country name, a couple of miles and back to Harrowden. 

 But the Harrowden Valley, what of that ? Ask the 

 honorary secretary when next you enclose him your 

 customary check. And hounds ran very fast while occu- 

 pied in this tigure-of-eight scurry of forty-five minutes. 

 Their fox was then beat and almost within their grip as 

 they drove him back to a spinney on the brow above 

 Harrowden. But hounds went on for a field or so on 

 what was evidently the stale line of another fox. Thus 

 they lost their own, who, no doubt, dodged back in the 

 confusion. 



Pulled out to a straight point-to-point, this would 

 have been held a tirst-rate gallop. Then, too, it is pos- 

 sible, those Harrowden bottoms would have been more 

 readily taken. As it was, they seemed to check everybody 

 until, as far as I could see, the welter Captain Kerr had 

 put them, and a full field's start, to his credit. The 

 morning hunt, too, had been interesting in its way — the 

 way being very muddy and occasionally very woody 

 (Sywell alone answering for some hundreds of acres). 

 It began at VVilmer Park and ended near Vivian's Covert. 

 If my sketch of Monday appears somewhat cursory, you 

 will please understand that I have told you quite as much 



