1880-81.] NEW year's DAY, 1S81. 341 



NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1881. 



A CHANGE came in -with daylight ; a soothing Avarmth flooded 

 the snow ; the grass hurst forth Avith the sun ; and, with heaiis 

 elate and spirits above debt and difficult}-, we jumped to breeches 

 and boots. Pickwell was the Cottesmore meet, and thither we 

 splashed, through inches of half-congealed mud — hugging our- 

 selves over the glad surprise and the shifting landscape. 

 There was still something in the stable to ride. 8unda_y's rest 

 Avould bring something else past the turning-point of blow or 

 sprain. Friday's mount would come Monday — and anyone 

 who, in our climate or our life, la^'s plans for more than three 

 days at a time is only likely to hatch disappointment. In fox- 

 hunting you must live for the day ; your imagining may take 

 the form of hope, and it will then enhance all 3'ou realise. 

 But never let it be calculating or procrastinating. A chance 

 once missed — whether a good hunting day or a start in a run — 

 does not readily come again : and a lost opportunity will linger 

 longer through summer months than many hai)i)y memories. 

 At least this is the philosophy of a mind indifferently consti- 

 tuted. No doubt there are many as badly balanced, a too 

 absorbing enthusiasm being in part to blame for a faulty 

 equihbrium. 



In tbe leisurely journey of some three miles to Orton Park 

 Wood, after a short burst from the Punchbowl, horses had 

 every chance of regaining their wind. The brief gallop alread}^ 

 experienced was held to have been anything but sufficient to 

 allow of a change of saddles ; and as things happened I fancy 

 but few men ever got their second horses afterwards. The 

 field had scarcely manned the good gravel ride in Orton Park 

 AVood before ; from sign or symptom or instinct, the}^ became 

 alive to the fact that a fox had gone somewhere. Hounds 

 flung themselves out of sight into the underwood; Neal and the 

 Muster shifted imeasily about ; but for a time no tangible 

 sound or token came to proclaim a fox away. A certain few 



