A Run 131 



ing for herself, discovered the truth ; and the fox, who 

 is, in fact, cantering easily along under the impression 

 that he has shaken off his foes, quickens his pace 

 again as he hears the chorus which acknowledges the 

 line. 



On the field speed once more ; the check has been so 

 short that the stragglers are barely up, Urbington, very 

 wet and rather cautious, being in the ruck. Maizeley 

 again turns off to the right, parallel to the big blind 

 fence, the aspect of which greatly increases his following, 

 especially as the country towards which hounds are 

 heading is the reverse of agreeable to any but the thruster 

 — small enclosures, with a good deal of plough, separated 

 by straggling thorn hedges, with a ditch always on one 

 side, and sometimes on both. Sylvanson, Chipping, the 

 first whip, and a few more, including a lady on a 

 thoroughbred bay, and Captain Paddock — a well-known 

 gentleman rider, on Boreas, a chaser he has more than 

 once "steered to victory between the flags — scorn to turn 

 aside from the uncompromising obstacle before them, 

 and all get over, Chipping's horse blundering on to its 

 head, but quickly recovering, Boreas clearing something 

 that cannot be very far short of thirty feet. Master, 

 huntsman, and a few others less ambitious, but no less 

 determined to be there, have ridden to a place where 

 the fence is thinner, and before the last of the little 

 group comes to it a gap lets him through. In two 

 streams the followers gallop across the plough ; Maizeley 

 and his party, the bulk of the field, are out of sight ; the 

 hounds are running merrily over a ridge and furrow 

 beyond towards a fence, on the other side of which a rail 

 is visible ; and here grief overtakes Sapp on his 300- 

 guinea chesnut horse, fondly supposed by himself and 



K 2 



