lO Tally ho, 



he had floated, and being told "Wansford/' says, 

 "What! Wansford in England? ^^ by which title it 

 has been known ever since. 



The meet, on the occasion of my visit, was at 

 Lilford, and many a man has had a worse fate than, 

 that morning, was mine. A mount on Harkaway by 

 Hieover, dark-brown horse with tan muzzle, 16 hands, 

 master of any weight, flat legs, short pasterns, 

 clean and powerful hocks, sloping shoulders, high 

 crest, deep girth, well-ribbed up, arched neck, small 

 head, symmetrical ears, and eyes like a hare, with 

 exceedingly " good manners,^^ though a trifle sensi- 

 tive, as one may see by his playful gambols, suggestive 

 of being ^^ all there '^ whenever his path is crossed by 

 blackbird or thrush, as it darts from the hawthorn 

 hedge. Cornered in a narrow lane running parallel 

 with the rail, the gates of the level crossing closed, 

 and a coal train thundering in the rear, he stands 

 bewildered, quivering in every muscle; then come a 

 whistle, a whirl of smoke and dust, the din and crash 

 of the passing trucks, and, with a snort and a bound, 

 he is round on his hind legs in an instant, and goes 

 through a variety of evolutions that tax the powers of 

 his rider to the fullest extent. Decidedly railways in 

 hunting countries should have been constructed on the 

 underground system. 



A sharp gallop through the quiet little village of 

 Elton, past Elton Hall, the seat of Lord Carysfort, 

 away through the sleepy, deserted-looking town of 

 Oundle, and Lilford Cross-roads are reached. During 

 the whole of the ride, some nine miles or thereabouts, 

 there is no occasion to go a yard on the road, which is 

 bordered all along with a broad margin of turf, so that 



