Wasn’t it glorious, though you rode much heavier then than you do now,—wasn’t it glorious, I say, to view a gallant fox going straight away from Lilburne, Loatland Wood, Shankton Holt, John-o’-Gaunt, or any covert you please to name that lies in the heart of a good-scenting, fair-fenced, galloping country? Yourself, sheltered and unseen, what keen excitement to mark his stealing, easy action, gliding across the middle of the fields, nose, back, and brush carried in what geometricians call a “right” line, to lead you over what many people would call a “serious” one! A chorus ringing from some twenty couple of tongues becomes suddenly mute, and the good horse beneath you trembles with delight while the hounds pour over the fence that bounds the covert, scattering like a conjuror’s pack of cards, ere they converge in the form of an arrow, heads and sterns down, racing each other for a lead, and lengthening out from the sheer pace at which a burning scent enables them to drive along! They have settled to it now. You may set to and ride without compunction or remorse. A dozen fields, as many fences, a friendly gate, and they have thrown their heads up in a lane. Half-a-score of sportsmen, one plastered with mud, and the huntsman now come up; you feel conscious, though you know you are innocent, that _he_ thinks you have been driving them! You remark, also, that there is more red than common in the men’s faces and the horses’ nostrils; both seem to be much excited and a little blown.