THE PROVINCES 



better rinsf for coffee — Hang^ed if I don't believe 

 you've been fast asleep all the time ! " 



But such runs as these, though wearisome to 

 a listener, are most enjoyable for those who can 

 appreciate the steadiness and sagacity of the 

 hound, no less than the craft and courage of the 

 animal it pursues. There is an indescribable 

 charm, too, in what I may call the romance of 

 hunting, — the remote scenes we should perhaps 

 never visit for their own sake, the broken sunlight 

 glinting through copse and gleaming on fern, the 

 woodland sights, the woodland sounds, the balmy 

 odours of nature, and all the treats she provides 

 for her votaries, tasted and enjoyed, with every 

 faculty roused, every sense sharpened in the 

 excitement of our pursuit. These delights are 

 better known in the provinces than the shires, 

 and to descend from flights of fancy to practical 

 matters of ^ s. d., we can hunt in the former at 

 comparatively trifling expense. 



In the first place, particularly if good horsemen, 

 we need not be nearly so well mounted. There 

 are few provincial countries in which a man who 

 knows how to ride, cannot get from one field to 

 another, by hook or by crook, with a little 

 creeping and scrambling and blundering, that 

 come far short of the casualty we deprecate as a 

 rattling fall ! His horse must be in good condition, 

 of course, and able to gallop ; also, if temperate, 



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