1878-79.] WATERLOO GORSE AND THRUSSINGTON GORSE. 275 



oxer, and rail. You never thought of the extra timber that he 

 left under the wide plashed hedge. You can't beheve in the 

 hole he found in the high growing bullfinch. You ai-e glad 

 that Lord Spencer smashed the far rail ; and you wondered 

 why Mr. Tailby shouted for "pace ! " Mr. Langham is near 

 enough to follow ; and Mr. Henry is close in his wake. Ah, 

 'tis a jolly moment, to open your lungs, and to thank Heaven 

 the world contains hunting. To the rocketting bound of a good 

 free horse you catch your breath, thankfully, happily. Why 

 doesn't this last for ever ? Why don't hounds always run ? 

 Why don't all horses jump free ? Why is there so much prose 

 in life ? Why — well, they are running too hard for more 

 questions — and 'twas a hearty fifteen minutes that brought us 

 to Loatland Wood. I (who speak only as one of a mass) felt 

 better — ten years better, for the scurry. And in half an hour 

 we killed our beaten fox in covert, and with satisfaction saw 

 him eaten. 



Then we stai-ted on a slow dull line (foxhunting, though, and 

 therefore pleasant) and killed a fat animal in the next hour. A 

 pommel-high stream had to be waded — and waded it was, too, 

 by two ladies, the Misses Mackenzie (who, with Mrs. E. Kennard, 

 had been thoroughly placed in the previous gallop). 



Now we get on to Monday last, Feb. 11th. The Quorn at 

 Sixhills — a day that in itself made amends for a month of fi^'ost. 

 Thrussington Gorse was the som'ce of that happy morning 

 gallop. The field clustered and quivered on its southernmost 

 edge, while the faint sounds of hound and horn came up the 

 wind, to hold them in blind anxiety. A fox gone here ; 

 another there — and the pack still audible in covert. How the 

 crush, the crash, and the scramble came, I can scarcely tell 

 you even now. Or how hounds and huntsman were through 

 the Wold of Thrussington so quickly. Penned up in a mob, 

 one's part is so atomic, and one's initiatory action so con- 

 glomerate, that the memory presents but a misty scene in which 

 one has a dim undefined notion of having taken a part. I 

 remember the deep struggle (some yards of which was per- 



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