1874—75.] A BYE-DAY STOLEN. 153 



A goodly field liaving by degrees collected, it now became a 

 question of persuading the master of the feasibility of hunt- 

 ing. According!}', those who had journeyed from the most 

 favourable points of the country were thrust forward to give 

 their reports, while those who had come from more weather- 

 stricken districts were kept scrupulously in the background. 

 The mixed feeling of the meeting must, however, have been as 

 palpable to the head of affairs as to ourselves ; and it must be 

 noted for future occasions of like uncertainty that all sports- 

 men should come clad as if no possible doubt existed. As it 

 was, the only hopeful conclusion that could be arrived at, 

 based on anything like reliable opinion, was that the " going " 

 on the grass was not absolutely or impracticably bad. But 

 when an old member of the hunt clinched this with the argu- 

 ment that foxes were certain to keep off the hard ploughs for 

 their own sakes, the master yielded with a good grace, and 

 moved off to brave the terrors of the soil. Tom Firr being 

 kept at home by the injury to his back, from which (to the 

 universal regret of the hunt) he still suffers severely, Mr. 

 Coupland had to-day to carry the horn in person. We need 

 not linger over the little spinneys which held not, nor on the 

 five minutes' spurt with an outlying fox near Bleakmore, who, 

 after running the railway for a mile, disappeared as it were 

 under a sleeper ; but may get on to Barkby Holt with all dis- 

 patch, confident in having learnt that it was fit for hounds to 

 run and horses to gallop. We have seen many a good find 

 and many a good gallop from this famous, and now well-kept, 

 fastness (and devoutly do we pray that it may be our fate to 

 see many another !) ; but never have started forth after a 

 subject whose course and principles were straighter than now. 

 It took two critical minutes to get homids out on the line, the 

 oi^eration being by no means facilitated by the over-liastiness 

 of even this miniature field ; and two minutes at such a time is 

 a long reprieve to a fox's life and a heavy handicap on the 

 efforts of hounds. The Baggrave valley was the line taken 

 from the first; and a ruler marking its continuation on the 



