No born Englishman could have cared less for the soaking rain; and, wet to the skin, tired to the bone, and stiff to the marrow, I have rarely been more exuberant than when I gradually regained the use of my legs in the half-mile walk to the hotel, resolving that not even the glories of American citizenship should ever keep me away from England in winter were I only able to afford the luxury of regular hunting. But the exuberance was moral rather than physical. I had not been so tired for years,--stiff as an old horse, after over thirty miles of really hard riding (the last seventeen miles in two hours). The cure was a hot bath and a dish of hot soup, followed by a log-like sleep of two hours on a sofa before a blazing hot fire, a sharp half-hour's walk, a very plain dinner, and a couple of hours' chat with my interested East-Indiaman in the smoking-room: the cure was complete; and all that was left of the day's sport was its brilliant recollection. * * * * * My second day was near Stratford-on-Avon,--on _Ay_-von, the misguided English call it. The meet was to be at Goldicote House, one of the "fixtures" of the Warwickshire Hunt. There were about a hundred persons, including a few ladies, and one little bareheaded "blue-coat" school-boy (from Charles Lamb's school), who, with his folded umbrella, long skirt, low shoes, and yellow hose, was in for as much sport as his Christmas holiday could give him. As a farther penalty for want of forethought, I was reduced to riding a friend's coach-horse. However, the reduction was not great, for whether by early instruction or by inheritance, he was more than half a hunter, and gave me a capital look at the whole day's chase; while his owner, on a most charming black blood mare, being out of condition for hard riding, kindly applied himself to urging me to severer work than one likes to do with a borrowed horse. He introduced me to a venerable old gentleman in a time-and-weather-stained red coat, velvet cap, and well-used nether gear, mounted on a knowing-looking old gray, and attended by his granddaughter. He could not have been less than eighty years old, and his days of hard riding were over; but constant hunting exercise every winter for over sixty years had protected him wonderfully well against the ravages of time, and it is rare to see an American of sixty so hale and hearty, and so cheerful and jolly. I was told that if I would take him for my leader, I would see more of the run than I could in any other way with such a mount as I had. He seemed to know the habits of the foxes of South Warwickshire as thoroughly as he did every foot-path and gate of the country, and he led us by cross-cuts to the various points to which Reynard circled, so that we often had the whole field in sight. It was not an especially interesting day, and the fox got away at last, among a tangle of railway lines that blocked our passage.