21 JANUARY 1955, Page 13

Cold Comfort We have all vastly different ideas of what

enjoyment and physical pleasure are. Yesterday, on the way 'over the tops.' as the moorland plain is called, I encountered two sportsmen with guns under their arms and hands tucked deeply into their pockets. Their cheeks were mottled blue and red. It was a bad day to seek a hare, and the few rabbits that were once to be found there had all died of the plague in the autumn. I won- dered if anything else could have brought them to such a bleak and exposed country when the ground was like iron. I wondered, too, about the frisky pony that kicked up his heels and ,went on over the skyline, as mad as a hatter. He, too, seemed to be affected by cold. I was more sorry for the pony than I was for the sportsmen, for he, poor beast, had to scratch for his bite of grass and rely on the thickness of his winter coat to keep out the cold in the coming night, while they were there of their own volition— although, judging from their dejection, they were beginning to wonder what sort of madness' had prompted the adventure.