198 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD. 



Jind ever hindered, with all action trammelled, yet power- 

 less to shake off the fetters. Hounds were perhaps but a 

 couple of fields before them ; but, shut out of sight by 

 lofty hedges, they might as well have been a mile 

 away. A looker-on no doubt sees much of the game ; 

 but what he sees from sucli a point of view as 

 this is calculated neither to edify nor to encourage him. 

 Now he has to rein up short, while a friend, after taking 

 for quite fifty yards a deliberative position on his horse's 

 neck, leaves that to roll rabbit-like from furrow to furrow. 

 The loose horse utterly declines to be caught — ^preferring 

 rather to pursue the Master with dangerous closeness 

 over the following gap. As, however, he has already 

 ilung both his patent-safety-stirrups out of their sockets 

 and loft them a quarter of a mile apart, perhaps he would 

 not be of much use to anybody if he could be caught. 

 The very next fence affords another excellent proof of the 

 value of these inventions, in the stage of perfection they 

 liave at present attained. Dirt-stained and mud-be- 

 smeared, a second comrade rises from beyond a hedge, 

 which in due course — /. ^., after some-one has refused, 

 someone else has tumbled over, and a third someone has 

 stuck fast in — we hope yet to make the means of gaining 

 upon hounds. A grin flashes across his plastered face — 

 but it is no grin of holy joy, nor even of thankful appre- 

 ciation for the inquiry shouted. It is a grin of savage 

 temper, such as we had never thought to see disfiguring 

 those fashionable features. He is not hurt, nor for the 

 moment is he suffering for the loss of his pride of place — 

 still less for his very funny appearance. But both his — ■ 



