e parish is
divided from parish and farm from farm, has been a study to him; and he
has learned the purpose and bearing of every lane. He is never thrown
out, and knows the nearest way from every point to point. If there be a
line of gates across from one road to another he will use them, but he
will commit himself to a line of gates on the land of no farmer who uses
padlocks.

As he trots along the road, occasionally breaking into a gallop when he
perceives from some sign known to him that the hunt is turning from him,
he is generally accompanied by two or three unfortunates who have lost
their way and have straggled from the hounds; and to them he is a
guide, philosopher, and friend. He is good-natured for the moment, and
patronizes the lost ones. He informs them that they are at last in the
right way, and consoles them by assurances that they have lost nothing.

"The fox broke, you know, from the sharp corner of Granby-wood," he
says; "the only spot that the crowd had left for him. I saw him come
out, standing on the bridge in the road. Then he ran up-wind as far
as Green's barn." "Of course he did," says one of the unfortunates
who thinks he remembers something of a barn in the early part of the
performance. "I was with the three or four first as far as that." "There
were twenty men before the hounds there," says our man of the road, who
is not without a grain of sarcasm, and can use it when he is strong
on his own ground. "Well, he turned there, and ran back very near the
corner; but he was headed by a sheep-dog, luckily, and went to the left
across the brook." "Ah, that's where I lost them," says one unfortunate.
"I was with them miles beyond that," says another. "There were five or
six men rode the brook," continues our philosopher, who names the four
or five, not mentioning the unfortunate who had spoken last as having
been among the number. "Well; then he went across by Ashby Grange,
and tried the drain at the back of the farmyard, but Bootle had had it
stopped. A fox got in there one day last March, and Bootle always stops
it since that. So he had to go on, and he crossed the turnpike close
by Ashby Church. I saw him cross, and the hounds were then full five
minutes behind him. He went through Frolic Wood, but he didn't hang a
minute, and right up the pastures to Morley Hall." "That's where I was
thrown out," says the unfortunate who had boasted before, and who is
still disposed to boast a little. But our phi