RIDING RECOLLECTIONS 



and a kill in the open ! What a good gallop ! 

 Not the ghost of a check from end to end. 

 Seven-and-twenty minutes," and so on, over and 

 over again. 



While the field straggle in, and the obsequies 

 of this good fox are properly celebrated, a little 

 enthusiasm would be justifiable enough on the 

 part of a young gentleman who has had the best 

 of it unquestionably through the whole of so 

 brilliant a scurry. He might be expected to 

 enlarge volubly, and with excusable self-conscious- 

 ness, on the pace, the country, the straight running 

 of the fox, the speed and gallantry of the hounds ; 

 nor could we blame him for praising by implica- 

 tion his own determined riding in a tribute to 

 " The King of the Golden Mines." 



But such extravagancies are studiously re- 

 pudiated and repressed by the school to which 

 young Rapid belongs. All he does say is this — 



'' I wonder when the second horses will come 

 up ? I want some luncheon before we go and 

 find another fox." 



I have already observed that in the shires we 

 put two days into one. Where seventy or eighty 

 couple of hounds are kept and thirty horses, to 

 hunt four times a week, with plenty of country, 

 in which you may find a fox every five minutes, 

 there can be no reason for going home while light 

 serves ; and really good scenting days occur so 



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