are going to a meet. Less than a trot, more than a walk, you can
neither sit still nor rise in your stirrup, but must just jog along till
you fairly ache. The horses pull and fight with their bits as we keep
them in the soft sandy ditch up the lane to spare their precious feet.
At the few cottages we pass women and children are all standing at their
garden-gates to watch the "quality" go by. The ploughmen in the fields
discover that the furrows nearest the road need a great deal of
attention; the shepherds fold their sheep to-day close to the hedge, so
as to secure front places for the show; and if we chance to run this way
every man will leave his work and follow us as long as his breath lasts,
and his master, who is riding, will not grumble, for if hounds are
running every man, be he rich or poor, has a right to run too.

Up the sandy hill we go, and out on the wide moors, covered with soft
brown heather, which stretch away with hardly a break twenty miles south
and east to Aldershot Camp or Windsor Forest. On the brow of the hill
grows a mighty bush of furze which always goes by the name of "Miss
Bremer's furze-bush." When the dainty Swedish novelist once came to
gladden Eversley Rectory with her presence she told how she longed to
see the plant before which Linnaeus had fallen on his knees; and she
walked up this selfsame hill and with eyes full of tears gazed on the
prickly shrub with its mist of golden-colored, apricot-scented flowers.
The old Hampshire proverb says, "When furze is out of flower kissing is
out of fashion;" and, sure enough, there is not a month in the year in
which you may not find a blossom or two among the green spines.

Now we cross a green road, the Welsh Ride, which in the autumn is
covered with thousands of cattle making their way in great herds from
the Welsh mountains and Devonshire pastures to the winter fairs round
London. The drovers used to boast that they could bring their beasts all
the way from Wales without once going off turf or through a turnpike.
Now, alas! crowded cattle-trucks on the railway are fast superseding the
old-fashioned, wholesome way of travelling, and we seldom have the
autumnal air filled with the lowing of the herds, the barking of the
attendant dogs and the shouts of the drovers on their sturdy Welsh
ponies. But to-day the Welsh Ride looks gay enough, for it is dotted
with little knots of horsemen in black or red coats using it as a short
cut from Aldershot and