A PREFACE AT HOME AND ABROAD. 



THE BICESTER. 



Seventeen minutes with the Bicester. Only a trifle, 

 perhapS' — but a trifle flist and sweet, and quite the best 

 fun that I at least have yet encountered. By no means 

 the pick of their country, they said, and one might well 

 believe it. For, even after a single night's soaking, the 

 ploughs rode deep and sticky, the grass at the same time 

 was hard, lampy and greasy, while many of the fences 

 are broad, blind doubles of the most indefinite kind. 

 Just the country in foct to bring a cropper, and to allow 

 of that cropper being a rough and disagreeable one. 

 Still, the fall was far more likely to come when you 

 were going slow — cautiously creeping and feeling your 

 way — than in the swing of a merry gallop, with the cry 

 of hounds strinoino; each nerve of horse and rider to its 

 utmost (at least so it seemed to one on whom the con- 

 clusion chanced to be most fully forced). 



Bletchington and Kirklington — the two beautiful 

 estates of Lord Valentia and Sir Henry Dashvv^ood 

 respectively, and immediately adjoining each other — 

 were the scene of all the earlier work and play of the 

 day; and at least forty horsemen sauntered for some 

 hours amid the green glades and brightly-changing 

 woods of these picturesque domains. Who were all 

 these representatives of the Hunt, it would be impossible 

 for me as a casual wanderer to say. But the following 

 few I believe I am safe in naming as taking their part in 



