A LEICESTERSHIRE SEASON, 1882-1883, 



WET AND WONDERFUL. 



OCTOBER BEFORE THE WIRE. 



Kneedeep everywhere in grass — its hedges gigantic and dark 

 — its ditches vague as the future and deep as destiny — Leices- 

 tershire wakes into life, in a month that knows no frost, no 

 crowd, no toilette, but only a six months' vista of sport and 

 hearty exercise. Fox hunting on the flags may have summer 

 charms — to a few. Fewer still, beyond Masters, huntsmen, and 

 specials, will made an occupation of it. Long pedigrees and 

 straight legs, fashion and symmetry — all sink into insignificance 

 against fling and drive, tongue and staunchness. The dash of 

 the foxhound in the open, his rush through strong covert, and 

 the force with which he strikes the keynote of a stirring chorus, 

 are better a hundred times than the most seductive of 

 kennel-parades. The one is action and life ; the other little 

 more than a reverie — a study of interest, perhaps — but owing 

 its main attraction to association, memory, and hope. But, 

 whether we have looked at hounds through the summer or not, 

 whether we have worked or idled, whether we have been play- 

 ing the Sybarite in London or the active rustic in our own hay 

 field, whether in recent weeks our limbs and lungs have been 

 stretched over the heather, or cramped in a gloomy office till 

 partners should return from their holiday and our own turn come 

 — we all revel heartily in the first fresh morning in the saddle, 

 rise to enthusiam as again we hear a foxhound, and welcome 

 greedily any little scrap of sport that may be dealt out to us. 

 Hunting men seldom find themselves entirely out of exercise. 



