SEASON 1880-81 145 



to find a wetter one than that of October 5th, or a 

 more ardent body of horsemen than the Belvoir 

 Hunt staff, whose enthusiasm was in no way damped 

 by the tremendous downpour. " We left kennels 

 at 3 A.M. for Rauceby, fourteen miles distant as the 

 crow flies. It rained in torrents from morning to 

 night, and we returned to kennels at 3.30 P.M. with 

 one nose to the kennel board. The next day, when 

 we went into the vale of Belvoir, we found it nearly 

 all under water, and the floods round the Thirteen 

 Acre at Allington looked like a sea. We killed a 

 brace of cubs, and on the journey home got another 

 wet jacket." 



One of the best-known faces in the hunting-field 

 at this period was Parson Bullen of Eastwell, aged 

 eighty -five ; " he was a little bit of a man, a regular 

 Tom Thumb, mounted on a big chestnut horse." 

 On many days that he came out he would ride up 

 to Gillard and ask him where he intended to draw 

 in the afternoon, because he had to return to his 

 parish to take a funeral or wedding as the case 

 might be. The next time he would tell him, " I 

 got back in time, Frank, after that gallop ; had to 

 take the funeral in my boots and spurs, could not 

 be helped ! it did not matter so long as I was 

 there 1 " The bitterest pill of all was when the old 

 gentleman had .to bury his own parish clerk, to whom 

 he was most attached, and who was used to all his 

 old-fashioned ways. Parson Bullen hunted up to 

 ninety years of age ; to the last he used to go, and 

 hated shirking. 



This season was one of the wettest on record, but 



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