54 SPORTS AND ANECDOTES. 



there, however, made a turn across the road as if he 

 meant to go to Ashwell, but turning back again close 

 to the village of Cottesmore, he ran down a pathway 

 which was at the back of that village and parallel 

 with it. There had been a capital scent, and we had 

 made him jog along pretty merrily, and we were 

 evidently about to kill our fox. The footpath along 

 which we were riding was very wet and as greasy 

 as butter. I was riding a little mare that we called 

 Zigzag, from the crooked way in which she stood 

 in the stables ; she was a particularly clever animal 

 and a capital fencer, but she had one great fault, 

 which was, that if she got a bit tired she would 

 refuse, or try to do so. 



It so happened that at the end of the footpath there 

 was a stile the sort of stile that one has seen depicted 

 with an old woman in a red cloak, with a basket of 

 eggs and butter on her arm, going to market. A real 

 good stile, with a kind of foot-board at about the 

 second rail, to assist such old women over, and on the 

 other side was a back lane leading into the village, 

 with a bit of a drop down. We were all getting a bit 

 sticky, for we had come pretty fast from where our fox 

 crossed the road at the turnpike leading to Exton. 

 Lambert was a little ahead of me, evidently bent on 



