8o Sportsmen Parsons in Peace and War 



" I had just done my work and seen my poor, and dinner 

 was coming on to the table yesterday — just four o'clock — when 

 the bow-wows appeared on the top of the Mount, trying my 

 patch of gorse, so I jumped up, left the cook shrieking — and 

 off. — He wasn't there, but I knew where he was, for I keep a 

 pretty good register of foxes (ain't they my parishioners and 

 parts of my flock ?) and, as the poor fellows had had a blank 

 day, they were very thankful in five minutes to find themselves 

 going like mad. We had an hour and a half of it — scent breast 

 high as the dew began to rise (bleak north-easter always good 

 weather), and if we had not crossed a second fox, should have 

 killed him in the open ; as it was we lost him after sunset, after 

 the finest grind I have had these nine years, so I went back to 

 dinner. The old horse behaved beautifully, not fast, but in 

 the enclosed woodlands he can live up to anyone, and earned 

 great honour by leaping in and out of the Loddon, only four 

 more doing it, and one receiving a mucker. 



" I feel three years younger to-day. The whip tells me 

 there were three in the river together, rolling over, horse and 

 man ! What a sight to have lost, even by being ahead. 



" Have you seen the story of the run on January 7th, when 

 Mr. Woodburn's hounds found at Blackholme at the bottom of 

 Windermere and ended beyond Helvellyn, more than fifty 

 miles of mountain ? After Applethwait Crag (where the field 

 lost them) they had a ring on High Street (2,700 feet) of an 

 hour, unseen by mortal eye ; and after that were seen by a 

 shepherd in Pattcrdale, Brother's Water, top of Fairfield (2,900 

 feet), Dunmail Gap, and then over the top of Helvellyn (3,050 

 feet), and then to ground on Birkside Screes — I cannot find it 

 on the maps — but what a poetic thing ! Helvellyn was deep in 

 frost and snow. Oh, that I could write a ballad there anent. 

 The thing has taken possession of me but I can't find words. 

 There was never such a run since we were bom ; and to think 

 of the hounds doing the last thirty miles alone ! " 



Whenever he had had a great day, either in the field or by 

 the river, he always had to sit down and let Tom Hughes hear 

 all about it, even when he came in late and tired. 



For a good many years Charles Kingsley's advanced views 

 often served to get him into conflict with less advanced clerics. 

 It was a time of unrest. First the Oxford movement disturbed 



