nting field. There comes a sudden rush, when men have not
cooled themselves down by the process of riding here and there and
going through the usual preliminary prefaces to a run. They are
collected in crowds, and the horses are more impatient even than
their riders. No one on that occasion could have been more impatient
than Walker,--unless it was the steed upon which Walker was mounted.
There was a crowd of men standing in a lane at the corner of the
covert,--of men who had only that moment reached the spot,--when at
about thirty yards from them a fox crossed the lane, and two or three
leading hounds close at his brush. One or two of the strangers from
the enemy's country occupied a position close to, or rather in the
very entrance of, a little hunting gate which led out of the lane
into the field opposite. Between the lane and the field there was
a fence which was not "rideable!" As is the custom with lanes,
the roadway had been so cut down that there was a bank altogether
precipitous about three feet high, and on that a hedge of trees and
stakes and roots which had also been cut almost into the consistency
of a wall. The gate was the only place,--into which these enemies
had thrust themselves, and in the possession of which they did not
choose to hurry themselves, asserting as they kept their places that
it would be well to give the fox a minute. The assertion in the
interests of hunting might have been true. A sportsman who could
at such a moment have kept his blood perfectly cool, might have
remembered his duties well enough to have abstained from pressing
into the field in order that the fox might have his fair chance.
Hampstead, however, who was next to the enemies, was not that cool
hero, and bade the strangers move on, not failing to thrust his horse
against their horses. Next to him, and a little to the left, was the
unfortunate Walker. To his patriotic spirit it was intolerable that
any stranger should be in that field before one of their own hunt.
What he himself attempted, what he wished to do, or whether any
clear intention was formed in his mind, no one ever knew. But to the
astonishment of all who saw it the horse got himself half-turned
round towards the fence, and attempted to take it in a stand. The
eager animal did get himself up amidst the thick wood on the top of
the bank, and then fell headlong over, having entangled his feet
among the boughs. Had his rider sat loosely he would probably have
got