3 a THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD. 



first completed season. The old soldier wears his 

 uniform only when duty compels him ; the last-joined 

 ensign (or whatever answers to him in a territorial cadre) 

 is never happy out of it. No. They would seem to 

 regulate their arrival by some such hidden law as governs 

 the coming of the woodcocks — reducing it to practice in 

 the form of the " first Monday in November," much as 

 the latter may be expected with the first north-east wind 

 in the month. I fear that these November sportsmen 

 find the fences anything but clear of darkening leaf and 

 tangled grass even now. As a matter of flict, the 

 country is little less blind than ever ; while the ground is 

 rapidly becoming deep and liolding — the latter condition 

 being really a Uiucli more fruitful cause of grief than the 

 former. 



But there were few hills to-day, very much fewer than 

 I remember on the certain number of previous occasions 

 that it has been my luck to attend at Kirby Gate — a fact 

 that may, perhaps, be attributed to the comparatively 

 slender proportion of the fiehl that saw either of the runs 

 of the day. Let me get on at once to history. A fox 

 had been found — or, as is usually the case at Gartree 

 Hill, whereat another large crowd always assembles long 

 before the long procession of horsemen and carriages 

 winds into sight, found In'msrlf — before hounds were in 

 covert. 



So the horn was going at the foot of the hill before 

 half the cavalcade had debouched from the lane ; and for 

 all the start they got they might as well have remained 

 at Kirby Gate. Yet, as the hunt worked slowly over 



