1881— 82.] HARD AND FAST. 409 



how workmanlike a company was present, and how that com- 

 pany was rapidly and surely testifying to an open winter and 

 their own energy, through the medium of features disfigured 

 and beauty spoiled. It is scarcely correct to go out in January, 

 1882, without a closed or discoloured eye, a battered nose, or 

 cheeks whereon no razor could wander uninterrupted. The 

 smooth cheek of youth — or protracted youth — is a field that 

 the blackthorn of Leicestershire dearly loves. I remember 

 one who fought and bled copiously amid its prickly paths for 

 some seasons — down whose flushed cheeks the hot drops of gore 

 were wont regularly to course each other, in sympathy with 

 the heel taps, freely flowing afterghth. He went to Cheshire ; 

 and his face m spring was as of a newborn babe, unscarred, 

 dishonourably smooth. " Why, friend of my youth, who 

 taught me the force of Rugby rules and the kinship 'twixt shin 

 and leather, 'tween broadcloth and monitorial discipline, what 

 ails thee ? Has thine ardour worn out or fell cowardice o'er- 

 ta'en thee ?" ** Devil a bit," said he, of the Tuscan type, in 

 sorrow much rather than in anger. " They haven't a bullfinch 

 in the whole country ! " But it has not been in the bull- 

 finches alone that Leicestershire's bright lights have of late 

 been so nearl}^ and generally extinguished. Sore legs, deep 

 ground, and the miserable impossibility of Master stopping at 

 home, have had a great deal more to do with it : and hinc ilia 

 lachrymce, or, as the little boys of Melton translate it, "Oh my 

 eye, 'e's been a knocking 'is bopeep !" 



Passing on, as dignity should prompt, from the vulgarism of 

 these School Board inquisitors, it may be noted as an apropos 

 parenthesis that in to-day's experience we either jumped clean 

 or fell fairly. The hedges all stood level, if they stood strong. 

 You cleared the top or you caught it. You might break your 

 hat ; but you never tore your bows — a sentence that should 

 offer itself to the critics of the provinces like a minnow to a 

 shoal of perch. But I may cite the following few names to 

 prove that the faculty of horsemanship was fairly represented — 

 Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord Cloncurry, Lord Eocksavage, 



