RIDING OVER THE SHIRES 215 



The steeplechase — for such the hunt then is — will 

 not last long, and our friend is fairly certain to pick 

 hounds up again. There is, even in such riding as 

 his, no time to lose. He must be first at the gates 

 and he must know the country and have some know- 

 ledge of the lie of the coverts and the run of the foxes. 

 Thus an outlying fox, unless he is very hard pressed, 

 almost always goes to the nearest covert, or, if found 

 in the outskirts of a village or town, he will describe 

 a circle or two until he can find leisure to pop into a 

 rabbit hole or drain near his home. Following the 

 pack and watching for a turn — and you can see a 

 long way in Leicestershire — the skirter will ride 

 wide of the line. He is thus bound to keep a keen 

 look-out, or he may head the fox or ride over the 

 line. He will avoid the eye of the master and, like 

 the women of Athens, esteem it his greatest glory to 

 be noticed as little as possible. 



Now for our second instance. Mr. Stubbs hunted 

 in Warwickshire from Stratford - on - Avon. His 

 method was to peg along at the same pace, and this 

 he would keep up for twenty miles if the run lasted 

 so long. It was, says Nimrod, " a nice gentleman- 

 like canter of about nine miles in the hour." The 

 pace at which Mr. Stubbs rode over a country after 

 hounds, indeed, at last became proverbial. "I re- 

 member once being too late at covert and the hounds 

 had gone away with their fox ; meeting a groom 

 returning with his master's hack, I asked him whether 

 they had gone away quickly. ' No, sir,' said the 

 man, ' about Mr. Stubbs' pace.' " Yet, Mr. Stubbs 

 could always describe the run, seldom failed to come 

 up at the finish and was always ready to see a fresh 

 fox found, at any hour, " frequently reminding his 

 brother-huntsmen that there was a moon which 



