he direction in which the hounds are going, and
very soon they turn to you, and you find yourself almost alongside of
them. They are running "mute," with their noses several inches off the
ground; it almost looks as if they had "got a view" of him. But this is
not the case. Scent is "breast high." Two old hounds that you know
well--Crusty and Governor--are leading, though you are glad that one or
two you do not know (evidently some of this year's entry) are not
far behind.

The country, which has so far been rather hilly, now opens out into a
flat tableland. You fly on, thankful that you are on a thoroughbred, and
that he is in good condition. It pays well to keep a horse "up" all the
summer in this country, for some of the quickest things of the season
take place in October. Scent is often good at this time of the year,
because the fields are full of keep: there is plenty of rough grass
about. Later on they will be pared down by sheep, and the frost will
make them as bare as a turnpike road. Then again that abomination, a
"carrying" plough, is not so likely to be met with in October; the white
frosts are not severe enough. Later on they are a constant source of
annoyance to a huntsman, and invariably cause a check.

But your horse, well bred and fit though he be, is doing all he can to
live with the hounds. Fortunately, you know that he is too good to
chance a wall, even when blown. At the pace hounds are going you have
not much time to trot slowly at the walls in the orthodox fashion; you
must take them as they come, high and low alike, at a fair pace, taking
a pull a few strides before your mount takes off. Oh, how exhilarating
is a gallop in this fine Cotswold air in the cool autumnal morning! and
what a splendid view you get of hounds! Here are no tall fences to hide
them from your sight and to tempt a fox to run the hedgerows, no boggy
woodlands where your horse flounders up to his girths in yellow clay, no
ridge and furrow, and no deep ploughed fields.

What is the charm which belongs so exclusively to a fast and _straight_
"run" over this wild, uncultivated region? It does not lie in the
successful negotiation of Leicestershire "oxers," Aylesbury "doubles,"
or Warwickshire "stake-and-bound" fences, for there need be no obstacle
greater than an occasional four-foot stone wall. Perhaps it lies partly
in the fact that in a run over a level stone-wall country, where the
enclosures are large and the turf sound, giv