CATCH 'EM WHO CAX. 01 



CATCH 'EM WHO CAN. 



THE Hoby lordship again to a merry tune, if not a lengthy 

 one and this on the afternoon of Monday last, November 27, 

 a brief and pleasant prelude to the wild tempest that closed the 

 day. The Quorn had met at Ratcliff-on-the-Wreake, and had 

 already hugely edified and amused a strong concourse of cotton- 

 spinners, shoemakers and men of like profession who dearly love 

 a day on foot with the home pack running a fox for an hour 

 and a half round Cossington Gorse, and killing him in the 

 village of Thrussington. In proof of the preference of foxes for 

 a quiet corner in the open, as against the recognized insecurity 

 of a covert regularly visited by hounds, Cossington Gorse had 

 been 'drawn blank, when a fox was turned out of his usual 

 kennel in a hayrick close by. And again, when an hour later 

 they brought him back to the covert, no less than three foxes 

 had now congregated there. Little scent had there been ; but 

 of this little the 1 most was made. The dog pack worked hard 

 and so did the footpeople as useful skirmishers. 



When Thrussington Gorse was reached about 2.30 in the 

 afternoon, prospects were anything but bright. The clear sky 

 of the morning was now overcast with black scudding clouds ; 

 the wind blew half a gale ; and we could not but remember 

 that the Gorse thus far in the season had been blank. But we 

 did not all know that the earths in the Hoby pastures hard by, 

 where Mr. Barford-Henton and his good neighbours had so 

 carefully guarded two litters of cubs during the summer, had 

 now been smoked and stopped, and the occupants driven off to- 

 the coverts. Let me suppose you do not all happen to be as- 

 intimate with the neighbourhood as the writer. Thrussington 

 New Covert, as it is still called though I see by an old map 

 that it existed even in Sir Harry Goodrich's time, under the 

 title of the Manor Covert stands by the side of the old Fosse 

 Road a quarter of a mile from the crossroads of Six Hills, and 

 has the wood of Thrussington Wolds to back it up a field away. 

 The gorse is still only kneedeep after the double treatment of 



