FOX-HUNTING IN THE SHIRES. 7 



pursuers with teeth set hard are racing for the nearest fence, and 

 eight hundred hoofs thunder on the turf. The men who would 

 keep in the first flight must sit down and ride then. Whatever 

 may be of barbarity in sport dwindles to nothingness at such a 

 moment, when noble horse and perfect horseman are inspired by 

 common sympathies. The lightest to;ich of bit on mouth or a 

 firm pressure of knees against saddle-flaps is enough to tell the 

 sensitive animal — madly excited though he may seem^ — what his 

 master asks of him as they near a blind bullfinch or treacherous 

 oxer. To feel the heave of a clever fencer's quarters, as with neck 

 outstretched, ears set forward, and nostrils quivering, he rises at 

 the obstacle, is to realize why English men and women " risk neck 

 and limb and life "in the pleasures of the chase day after day. 

 Sweeter music man cannot hear than the rhythmic beat of hoofs 

 on springing turf as one lands over a big fence well ahead of the 

 charging throng and finds oneself for a moment alone with the 

 hounds, that are skimming like sea birds across the green waves of 

 ridge and furrow. After going for fifteen minutes at best pace, and 

 such a pace, half the horses that were so eager at the outset have 

 been left far behind, others are already faltering in their stride, and 

 can only be kept going by skilful riders who know when to give them 

 a pull, and many begin to chance their fences, crashing through 

 quicksets or rapping the stiff top rails harder than a cautious man 

 likes to hear. Perhaps a brief check may give breathing space 

 to blown horses before the pack in joyous chorus hits off the 

 scent, and men of the first flight with thinned ranks race on 

 again for the sluggish brook " where the willow trees grow." The 

 keen east wind bites shrewdly, and the muddy stream looks 

 coldly grey, as if frost had already begun to grip it, but he who 



