1872-73.] LAST IlUN OF 1872 WITH THE COTTESMORE. 75 



right. A deep down-liill fence, of nondescript style and diffi- 

 culty, puts two good couple liors de combat. The next is 

 indeed a teaser, where the best horse in the Shires might 

 crack under the saddle. A fair broad ditch to smile in your 

 face, a high plashed fence frowning blackly above it, like the 

 laughing eyes you may often see, that tell not so truly of the 

 natm-e within as the dark cruel brows that can carry no false 

 expression. It may be a lion heart and stout loins that are 

 under you ; but these will scarcely take you beyond a second 

 ditch, grass-grown, invisible, and wide. Five loose horses are 

 careering about at once, five pairs of Hartley's are stumbling 

 over the fallow, and five pairs of lungs are gasping a wild 

 entreaty to " Stop him ! " The survivors have escaped, 

 either with a long-drawn struggle, or by making use of a 

 breach efi'ected by a less fortunate forerunner. 



Now the chase is fairly in the wild open Twyford countr}^ 

 still bearing to the right over a tract where no human figure 

 diverts the fox in his course, where scarcely a sheep or bullock 

 is found to foil the line, where old turf clothes every field, 

 and where the fences are of good old-fashioned growth 

 — a dozen outlets in each. Three fine days and a kindly 

 wind have already made the grass ride firmer than it has 

 done for weeks ; and, though the pace is not Newmarket, 

 hounds keep running, so that it is all galloping, such as a 

 hunter can command and continue. Fifty men are riding 

 almost abreast, each of whom one might gladly take — yet 

 scarcely dare to follow — as pilot over any line in Leicester- 

 shire. Now they bear slightly to the left, sinking lower 

 down the broad hillside that they have been sldrting for some 

 minutes ; 



Then to the shore of one of those long loops 

 Where thro' the serpent river coiled, they came. 

 . . . . The banks were steep ; the stream 

 Full, narrow. 



The well-known Twyford brook it is. Not a very formidable 

 serpent certainly ; but one that is not to be overcome at any 



