DRYING UP ! 207 



troublesome pursuers. The latter very fortunately hit 

 off the pouit at which Reynard had landed out amid 

 fragments of glass, before they could make the line good 

 into the drawing-room — or the ruin among the china 

 shepherdesses might have rivalled the horrors of the 

 sacking of Troy. But to-day the stableyard was his 

 thoroughfare — or his idyllic wooden horse — to convey 

 him through the Avails and on to Eanksboro' Gorse. 

 The Cottesmore Master was here to see the foreigners 

 fairly enter, and to view a fox (I fear one of his own) 

 stealing away beyond, l^ut it was not a day to squander 

 time on fruitless inquiry. A fresh fox on a dry and fine 

 da}^ is as difficult to distinguisli by his appearance as a 

 fresh egg — the test of eating not always being applicable. 

 At any rate this fox asserted himself as 3'et unfit for 

 killing ; and, as he in coarse of time betook himself out 

 of the reach of investigation, there can be little doubt 

 he proved his point — though in a slow hunt by AVhissen- 

 dine and Ashwell his opponents did ail that was possible 

 to maintain the contrary. 



Eiding to hounds during the current week has been an 

 indulgence to which even those who partook of it most 

 readily scarcely denied such terms as suicidal, reckless, 

 shortsighted and hardhearted. Having dubbed it Avitli 

 these epithets in the abstract, and assumed a virtuous 

 demeanour as they clattered the roadside to covert, or 

 sauntered over the blocks of iron mud which now form 

 the gateways, they waited only to hear hounds open — 

 then at once cast all considerations of prudence and 



