20 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD. 



enough — and often convenient enougli — it is to get into 

 a broad road ; bnt to leave it (as pulpit and experience 

 have taught us all our lives) is a very different task. So 

 for a long quarter of a mile never an outlet presents 

 itself. A gate at last — and off' to the left the gleam of a 

 white hound darting through the second fence away. 

 Those two fences and two great furrowed fields are made 

 up as quickly as hot anxiety and a big striding horse can 

 manage. In the third the two streams reunite ; and we 

 are galloping in the train of the huntsman's party. 

 Amid these tight little meadows and their thick leafy 

 hedges you will see nothing of hounds unless you are on 

 their backs. But tlie sinole red coat is the best of 

 beacons, as it flickers brightly over eacli intervenhig 

 barrier, or flashes like a meteor across some rising- 

 ground. This may help you to cut into the grassy lane 

 of the Gaddesb}" and Brooksby bridle road, and to catch 

 the swinging handgate that opens into the wide Brooksby 

 pastures — while Mr. Alfred Brocklehurst, on the best of 

 timber jumpers, launches over the rails by the side, and 

 the voice of the less venturesome pleads, Do as you 

 would be done by and keep it open for me. Twenty 

 couple, young and old, are driving down the wide green 

 slope — the old ladies straining madly on the ravishing 

 scent, the youngsters catching the new excitement that 

 they have never felt to the full before. We ought to 

 know this bridle path, and should have learned to open 

 its easy gates ere now. But the three leaders find no 

 time nor need to stop — so why should reader and I ? 

 The fence in the valley is but a flying trifle ; though 



