154 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD. 



been drinking nectar with the gods ; and are rapturous 

 over the Elysium of which they have had a ghmpse. 

 Am I right in saying that their number seldom exceeds 

 half a dozen — the every move and turn of whom has 

 depended on what they could see of the leading hounds? 

 Certainly I am, in referring to our best and strongest 

 country — and leaving out altogether the great open hills 

 of High Leicestershire, where men must more often ride 

 in the distant wake of hounds than comfortably to them — • 

 for the fences do not ofter openings enough for more, 

 and the very crowd prohibits even the keenest and 

 readiest riders from invariably securing a front place. 

 Of these fortunate few, the best man of all perhaps is one 

 who, though he has ridden the country for twenty years, 

 still gathers a double enjoyment from his hunting in 

 never knowing where he is ; another is a new comer, 

 riding his hardest in a strange country, or even perhaps 

 a foreigner who can scarcely find his way to the meets ; 

 a third has been riding a " handful," who left him no 

 leisure for looking about him ; a fourth lives for steeple- 

 chasing, and regards the hounds only as so many move- 

 able, and often inconvenient, flags ; a fifth, who knows 

 every yard of ground for twenty miles round, has slipped 

 off directly after the gallop to catch a train to London — 

 and you are very lucky if you can get hold of the sixth, 

 with a guarantee that he is communicative, accurate, 

 intimate with the country, and not disposed to crab the 

 run because his old bay mare could not quite go the pace 

 with the galloping quads of Nos. 1 and 4. Then the 

 other hard — but for the nonce unlucky— men cannot 



