THE JOHN O" GAUNT GALLOP. 167 



tliorn-blocked gateway, the otiier a hole in a lilgli bull- 

 fincli — the very desiderata for clubbing a mass of horse- 

 men) brought them to a crossroad that runs from Tilton 

 village under the railway to Marfield. Over this road a 

 white gate led np the second rise ; while a larch spinney, 

 close beside it, for a moment clouded the movements of 

 the pack from the straining eyes of the men behind. 

 Thus some of the latter took the right of the plantation 

 (towards the Halstead farm), under the impression that 

 hounds were bending that way — and in the next field 

 found an impassable gulf, completely cutting them off 

 from the chase and from hope. A quarter of a mile 

 round put them half a mile behind — and not a yard of it 

 could they ever recover. The leaders meantime had 

 swung across the railway with the pack (whether over a 

 bridge, or under an arch, I can induce none I have seen 

 to recall positively from their misty, hurried, recollection); 

 made good the Marfield brook, by ford or easy-railed 

 jump ; and embarked on as wet and wild a stretch of old 

 grass as the country holds. With a piping scent hounds 

 were running as close as they could pack. Each en- 

 closure measures half-a-hundred acres ; tlie fences are 

 laid and level — good at one place as at another — and the 

 vanguard rode almost abreast. Lord Charles Beresford, 

 Mr. Bunbury, ]\Ir. A. Brocklehurst, Capts. Ashton, 

 Molyneux and Smith, Count Kaunitz, with Mr. Gosling 

 and Capt. Candy — I cannot learn that there were more 

 than one or two others, till, after a long interval, a second 

 and stronger division rode hard in their wake. (Firr, I 

 need scarcely add, was in his proper and accustomed 



