18 THE BEST SEASOX ON RECOED. 



•\vitli comrades as jovially earnest — as madly Intent — as 

 (may I say ?) you and I, reader. I would put you in the 

 middle of the scurry forthwith, and send you cramming 

 and spurring in pursuit of those lithesome ladies at once 

 — but that every tale must have its lieginning, its 

 characters however few, its events however tamed by fact, 

 and its sequel however ordinary. Wherever you have 

 been of late, you know of the soft moist days that 

 characterised the latter half of October. The Friday in 

 question was a full example — drizzly and almost chilly 

 as one stood still ; wet, hot, and choking as one galloped 

 and jumped. A few people had been at Ashby pastures 

 when hounds were cast into it at ten o'clock ; a good 

 many more had turned up at their leisure daring the 

 morning — while hounds were fighting against a weak 

 scent among falling leaves in covert, and doing their best 

 and liveliest against shortrunning foxes outside. 



Gaddesby Spinney is a little copse, with the name of 

 which my kindly readers must be only too familiar — for 

 does it not recur as regularly and almost as profusely, 

 autumn after autunni, as the falling of the leaf? Distinct 

 amongst Mr. Cheney's other, and equally valued, patches 

 of covert in the neighbourhood, the plantation that lies 

 about half a mile westward of the village retains the 

 denomination. And some thirty individuals, all darkly 

 dressed and dripping, clustered at its edge in the early 

 afternoon of Friday. The old sweet sound ! Ilarh to it, 

 old ladies! The covert's a liny one ; a fox is a fact, a 

 scent is more than likely, and a gallop ought to be a 

 certaint3\ Out flashes the fact — ^^o, tally-ho, back ! and 



