BAEKBY TO TILTON AGAIN^. 93 



a pleasant and roomy line of grass below the village of 

 Barsby. The fences were strong and the falls were 

 many — but the soft ground makes falHng, if not actually 

 acceptable, at least ten per cent, less disagreeable than 

 under harder conditions (the unfortunate accident to Mr. 

 S. Paget in a gateway being a sad exception, on wdiich, 

 as is our custom and principle, we forbear to dwell). 



A touching action, not without its moral of goodwill 

 and friendship, came to light while some fifty people 

 were clearing the last fence approaching the spinney. 

 Among the earliest to fly the stake-and-bound was one 

 of Melton's smartest sons — his flushed and heated brow 

 now bared to the cooling breeze, and his fair locks as 

 nearly flowing as the weekly visit to the London barber 

 would warrant (for we are very punctilious on this head 

 — at all events till we reach the sober age of thirty, or 

 till we find ourselves added to the list of Benedicts). 

 Immediately following him rode a gaUant gentleman who 

 came last winter, not only to learn how English fox- 

 hunting was carried on, but even to bear away to France 

 "the laurels and the siller" of the Leicestershire Hunt 

 Steeplechase. Adapting himself with extraordinary 

 readiness to the ways and fashions of the sport, and 

 rapidly acquiring the knack of riding to hounds — he yet 

 found one little detail to puzzle and trouble him far 

 more than merely learning how to fall, much more than 

 accustoming himself to stout timber or scratchy bull- 

 finches. This to him lay in the incompatibility of the 

 hat of society to the rude exercise of the chase. A tall 

 beaver would surely be as much out of place in the 



