1880—81.] A STRANGER IN THE LAND. 369 



well of human nature, to note the delight of the old and crip- 

 pled foxhunter, as hounds were cheered out of covert and ui 

 full cry swept across the meadow in front of him. I believe 

 that, as three hundred other younger and haler men set off to 

 enjov themselves, he experienced a pleasure as genuine as, and 

 certainly more generous than, in past years he has gathered 

 from many a good run in which he has held his own with the 

 best. May his days yet be many, and may we learn to grow 

 old like him ! 



One broad meadow alone intervenes between the covert and 

 the railwa}', and along the bank of the river till the stream 

 runs at right angles under the line. The fox of to-day scurried 

 across this meadow straight for the railway, but just before 

 reachmg it swam the river and struck back over the country in 

 the old du'ection of Ashby Pastures and the Quorn country. 

 Thus he had taken us away from the ford, and left the railway 

 and its bridge as the best apparent medium for following him 

 over the water. There used to be another practicable ford 

 somewhere in this corner. There may be still, but nobod}- felt 

 inclined now to plunge in on chance ; and so one and all made 

 for the railway, and crowded into it lilce mice into a wire trap. 

 No, not all ; for Lord Grey de Wilton and Captain Boyce 

 grasped the situation at once, doubled back through the main 

 ford, and struck in with hounds in the country beyond sooner 

 than almost any of the self-caged ones. For, while the pack 

 dashed off with the greatest vigour on the line of their fox, the 

 hapless beings who had committed themselves to the railway 

 were the victims of unforeseen comphcations. The "track," 

 as our Transatlantic cousins term it, haj)i3enedto be just under 

 repair, and material was piled and scattered over it in lavish 

 confusion. Great wooden sleepers lay in a continued heap 

 along the bank, from which we have often been able to spring 

 easily over the side fence. Thinking that there must soon 

 come a clear space whence jumping would be i:>ossible, the 

 leaders blundered on over bundles of clanking iron pins, over 

 bare and newly-fixed sleepers, and mounds of fresh-turned 



B B 



