CHAPTER V.

ON THE WOLDS.

Time passes quickly for the sportsman who has the good fortune to dwell in the merry Cotswolds.  Spring gives place to summer and autumn to winter with a rapidity which astonishes us as the years roll on.

So diversified are the amusements that each season brings round that no time of year lacks its own characteristic sport.  In the spring, ere red coats and “leathers” are laid aside by the fox-hunting squire, there is the best of trout-fishing to be enjoyed in the Coln and Windrush—­streams dear to the heart of the accomplished expert with the “dry” fly.  In spring, too, are the local hunt races at Oaksey and Sherston, at Moreton-in-the-Marsh and Andoversford.  Pleasant little country gatherings are these race meetings, albeit the bona-fide hunter has little chance of distinguishing himself between the flags in any part of England nowadays.  The Lechlade Horse Show, too, is a great institution in the V.W.H. country at the close of the hunting season.

Annually at Whitsuntide for very many centuries “sports” have been held in all parts of the country.  It is said that they are the floralia of the Romans.  Included in these sports are many of those amusements of the middle ages of which Ben Jonson sang: 

     “The Cotswold with the Olympic vies
      In manly games and goodly exercise.”

Horse-racing is a great feature in the programme of these Whitsuntide festivities.

The “may-fly” carnival among the trout, together with lots of cricket matches, make the time pass all too quickly for those who spend the glorious summer months in the Cotswolds.  By the time the Cirencester Horse Show is over, the cubs are getting strong and mischievous.  Directly the corn is cut the hounds are out again in the lovely September mornings.  By this time partridges are plentiful, and must be shot ere they get too wild.  So year by year the ball is kept rolling in the quiet Cotswold Hills; the days go by, yet content reigns amongst all classes.

     “Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife
      Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
      Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
      They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.”

Then there is so much to do indirectly connected with sport of all kinds, if you live in a Cotswold village.  Woods and fox coverts must be kept in good order, so that there may always be cover to shelter game and foxes.  Cricket grounds afford unlimited scope for labour and experiment.