54 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



quickest and best of it; and, with a sweep to the right, brought 

 us to Orton Park Wood. When it is added that, in the turnip 

 field immediately adjoining the wood, no less than three fresh 

 foxes jumped up almost among the pack it will easily be 

 believed that the run ended in confusion. Still, a two-hours' 

 hunt and a six-mile point make no unworthy beginning to a 

 Melton season. 



But on Saturday, Nov. 4, the field in front of Leesthorpe 

 Hall was gay as a garden in June, with the sheen of scarlet 

 and the dazzle of snowy buckskin. It was truly a show meet 

 of the Cottesmore ; a bright scene and a charming gathering 

 bringing home vividly the pleasant fact that another season was 

 fairly before us. Dalby Hall looked beautifully picturesque 

 amid the particoloured foliage of the plantation surrounding it. 

 Yellow oak leaf and dark green fir blended gorgeously with red 

 and russet and every autumn tint which even the recent gales 

 have failed to destroy. Once more we stood on the Punchbowl 

 rim ; and once more we all dashed away over the top, aglow 

 with the same merry mixture of excitement, flurry and fear. 

 But a start effected is at once as soothing to excited hearts as 

 placing a kettle on the hob is to the seething waters within. 

 They may continue to flutter and fizz for a little while ; but 

 almost immediately settle down to and maintain a hot but 

 steady temperature. Many an ardent spirit may be seen 

 quaking in his leathers when a fox is first found, apparently 

 as fearful of what may be coming, as when The Doctor's lictor 

 used to warn him Jones minimus for the dread presence 

 after morning school. But once settled in his stirrups after the 

 first fence, the tremor disappears, the wild excitement gives 

 place to staid, determined delight ; and anxiety is neither on 

 his face nor in his thoughts again for the day. 



In a blustering wind we rode round and below the Punch- 

 bowl, and watched one of its many foxes killed. By the way, 

 he who should have been chief executioner on such an occasion 

 was absent through a curious accident. The new first whip, it 

 seems, in an evil moment tried the experiment of tying a fox's 

 head, wrong way uppermost, to his saddle. As he swung him- 



