a small meadow. He is riding frantically round and
round, afraid to risk the broad brook which encircles it, because of the
treacherous bank, and maddened by the receding sound of the chase. A boy
gets off the rick and runs to earn sixpence by showing a way out. So from
the rick Hodge has his share of the sport, and at that elevation can see
over a wide stretch of what he--changing the 'd' into a 'j'--calls 'the
juke's country.'

It is a famous land. There are spaces, which on the map look large, and
yet have no distinctive character, no individuality as it were. Such broad
expanses of plain and vale are usefully employed in the production of
cattle and corn. Villages, hamlets, even towns are dotted about them, but
a list of such places would not contain a single name that would catch the
eye. Though occupying so many square miles, the district, so far as the
world is concerned, is non-existent. It is socially a blank. But 'the
juke's country' is a well-known land. There are names connected with it
which are familiar not only in England, but all the world over, where
men--and where do they not?--converse of sport. Something beyond mere
utility, beyond ploughing and sowing, has given it within its bounds a
species of separate nationality. The personal influence of an acknowledged
leader has organised society and impressed it with a quiet enthusiasm.
Even the bitterest Radical forgives the patrician who shoots or rides
exceptionally well, and hunting is a pursuit which brings the peer and the
commoner side by side.

The agricultural population speak as one man upon the subject. The old
farmer will tell you with pride how his advice was sought when disease
entered the kennels, and how his remedy saved the lives of valuable
hounds. The farmer's son, a mere lad, whose head barely rises to his
saddle, talks of 'the duke' as his hero. This boy knows the country, and
can ride straight, better than many a gentleman with groom and second
horse behind. Already, like his elders, he looks forward impatiently to
the fall of the leaf. The tenants' wives and daughters allude with
pleasure to the annual social gatherings at the mansion, and it is
apparent that something like a real bond exists between landlord and
tenant. No false pride separates the one from the other--intercourse is
easy, for a man of high and ancient lineage can speak freely to the
humblest labourer without endangering his precedence. It needs none of the
parvenu's