334 



CHAPTEH XXXIV. 



WITH MR FERNIE. 



Of the South Quorn, as these hounds were known in 

 Mr Tailby's day and before, I by no means saw as 

 much as I could have wished, nor did I see them in 

 their best country. Though they were nominally 

 accessible from where I was then living, any meet 

 left but little change, in distance, out of a dozen 

 miles, and never did I leave off nearer home than 

 where I commenced. Nor was it my fate to drop in 

 for any of those famous runs with which Thatcher 

 has made hunting history of late ; indeed, more than 

 this, on a certain 9th of March of driving hail- 

 storms, it happened to me to sit by Nevill Holt on a 

 very lame horse and see hounds go away from covert 

 with a rattle that was the commencement of a good 

 hunt. My first days were not great ones, the best 

 of them perhaps being that on which we had a 

 hunting run from Watson's Gorse by Nevill Holt, 

 the pace improving thence, to Slawston. ' From 

 Slawston they ran a cracker to Hallaton, and some 

 of the steep banks facing north were horribly 

 dangerous from the frost. The end of the first 

 hour saw them at Keythorpe Lodge, and thence our 

 fox turned left-handed across the valley and circled 



