434 THE BEST OF THE FUN 



stood in the way. By-the-bye, I hope it will be under- 

 stood that, whenever I commit the impertinence of saying 

 who was on this occasion riding nearest to hounds, I refer 

 only to such moments as may have found the pack to all 

 purposes unapproachable, i.e. running harder than men, 

 or the bulk of men, could ride the country. I then speak 

 in a spirit of admiration and encomium. No such 

 opportunity belongs to the case of hounds going slow, and 

 all of us going a great deal faster. Then we are abomin- 

 able, all of us in deadly fear of being crowded out, and 

 comporting ourselves accordingly. At last the Master this 

 afternoon very properly held us all up, and we drew in our 

 reins and our horns, though the effect was for the moment 

 rather spoiled by the chestnut hanging fire in a gap, and 

 the next comer (a chief offender possibly) doing his utmost 

 to support authority by pushing the same into the next 

 field. 



When bullocks and sheep and horsemen had ceased to 

 interfere, the sturdy scent that belongs to a N.E. wind and 

 a rising glass was able to assert itself ; and hounds took us 

 hotly by the left of Yelvertoft village, and of Yelvertoft 

 hillside, to Elkington (Lord Spencer's) Covert. Forty 

 minutes or thereabouts. 



f 



The North Warwickshire 



The exigencies of the morrow admit of nothing further 

 than is due from the local reporter and addressed to the 

 local reader. Listen. Hilmorton Gorse, a quick find, 

 and the old start towards Crick Gorse, over the border. 

 A shepherd or some one with his dog did us service for 

 once ; he turned our fox away from Crick Gorse, and sent 

 him northward over what I dare to term a heavenly country, 

 to Lilbourne Gorse. I have ridden it again and again 

 since early boyhood, a fact that matters nothing. But I 

 don't think I ever saw so many men and women riding it 

 abreast. It was free from wire — thanks endless to the 

 good people who have brought this about. And a 

 frost-maddened community rode it for their lives, yet 

 could get none too close to hounds. Amid such a 



