54 By Stream and Sea/ 



which the south-west wind roars on rain-laden over the forest, 

 and calls me forth— being a minute philosopher — to catch 

 trout in the nearest chalk stream." 



So far the poet ; now the sportsman. Still jogging along 

 among the red fir stems, he ponders upon Life — " that one 

 word Life," — till, reflecting that all we can do is to " dazzle 

 and weary our eyes like clumsy microscopists by looking too 

 long and earnestly through the imperfect and by no means 

 achromatic lens," he determines to think of something else. 

 A hare races towards him through the ferns, and just as 

 learnedly as he discoursed of everything else he discourses 

 of the frightened animal, and is only stopped by the ap- 

 pearance of a great dog-fox, at which the rare old mare lays 

 back her ears, and stands still as a statue, though he can feel 

 her trembling between his knees — knees which one would 

 dare wager instinctively closed upon the saddle in true fox- 

 hunting grip, as in the old Dartmoor scenes where young 

 Kingsley passed his early days. 



From time to time a novelist of the Whyte-Melville type 

 makes us tingle with his description of a ride after the 

 hounds ; but I know of nothing in fox-hunting literature so 

 graphic and soul-stirring as Kingsley's account of the flight 

 of the fox, the pursuit of the hounds, and the tearing by of 

 the hunters. He wants to waken the echoes, to " break the 

 grand silence by that scream which the vulgar ' view-halloo ' 

 call." His heart leaps into his mouth, the fifteen-year-old 

 mare into the air. But no ! he reins in himself as he reins 

 in his horse, watches his red-coated friends ride away 

 through the wood, and as he waves them on feels in all 

 cheerfulness that his hunting days are over, yet is righteously 

 proud that " county, grass and forest, down and vale," once 

 knew his deeds, and that his gallant friends now threading 

 their ways through the dreary yellow bog know that he can 



