1881—82.] HARVEST-TIME. 373 



confidence in ourselves as yet, and less still in the horse we 

 had never crossed till to-daj\ But the ditches were, luckily, 

 mostly heyond the binders ; the new purchase was soon found 

 to know quite as much as his rider ; and we could squeeze his 

 fat sides as if we had never felt funk. The subtle waters of 

 the Asliby and Gaddesby brook were quickly and comfortabl}' 

 forded ; and then it was uphill, big grass fields, and foUow- 

 my-leader — the honour and office of gap-maker falling by 

 universal accord to the trumpet-major. Twenty minutes thus; 

 and, frothing, pantmg, and labouring, we reached Ashby Pas- 

 tures. Fox, hounds, and huntsmen were all in the road toge- 

 ther on the far side of the covert. A turn back launched them 

 again into the open — this time alone. The next half-hour 

 was spent, by the field looking for something to ride after, and 

 by the hunt officials in getting a divided pack together ; Firr 

 in the meantime having, with half the pack, followed a fox 

 over miles of open country by himself in the Ivii-by and Frisby 

 direction. 



The rest of the morning was all at, or from, the Gaddesby 

 Spinnies. First, a taste of blood to whet the puppies' palates 

 — then a healthy hearty scurry, that in November would have 

 set the Meltonian after-dinner tongues rolling. ''Hunting is 

 never mentioned at a Melton dinner," wrote Mr. Appleby. In 

 humility and shame I plead for my generation, suggesting only 

 in defence that the Meltonian of earlier yeai's either gave all 

 his attention to his dinner, or had much more control of self 

 than his successor of the present day. I am the more at a 

 loss to understand the dictum — knowing the two facts, first, 

 that the Waterford Meltonians were all sworn and agreed 

 Tories, and could have had no political wrangles to SAveeten 

 discussion ; and, secondly, that they all lived in single happi- 

 ness — till they had so far outrun the constable, or else bonneted 

 him so often {vide old Melton prints) — that it became advis- 

 able to seek the alternative of respectable married existence, 

 and its discursive field of argument. 



But this gallop — and in plain, brief, fact. Well, there were 



