238 EACECOUESE AND COVEET SIDE. 



jnclgDient. So it happened that in due course of 

 time an enthusiastic young party were landed at 

 Victoria Station, soon afterwards comfortably 

 installed in a railway train bound for Epsom, 

 and, after a short drive across the Heath, dis- 

 embarked at the back of the grand stand. 



When people can have their own way they 

 are usually good-tempered, and from the height 

 of a box in the west gallery there is plenty to 

 admire in the scenery of the Surrey Downs if 

 only one is in a humour to make the best of it. 

 Flags flutter in the breeze, and the sun, about 

 whose appearance there is now no sort of 

 mistake, makes radiant the tops of the tents 

 wherein the million — or that portion of it 

 which has come to the races — is busily engaged 

 in lunching already. Multitudes move to and 

 fro, and the picture of the hill forms a striking 

 contrast to another aspect of it, known to men 

 who have hunted with the Surrey Union. 



Across the almost deserted Heath on a morn- 

 ing when hounds meet at Epsom grand stand 

 solitary horsemen in pink, with now and again 

 pairs and trios in less striking colours perhaps, 

 but at any rate in boots and breeches, are 

 accustomed to canter ; for in the coverts away 

 to the left there is a very tolerable chance of 

 finding a fox ; and hunting men speculate as 



