MR. LOUT PHILIPS. 289 



A far less agreeable sign came a little while later when 

 we got among the wire by Willoughby, and one or two were 

 caught in it, while many others were frightened. Touching 

 the canal at Willoughby Inn, after a sweet succession of flat 

 firm meadows, with hounds going prettily thereon, we turned 

 along it for a mile till at Barby Wood House we came upon 

 the second whip with his cap up and his throat going, to tell of 

 the fox having crossed the canal where he stood. Now hounds 

 ran their hardest of the day clinging to the farther side of the 

 canal till opposite Cook's Gorse, then bearing upwards between 

 Kilsby and Barby for Braunston Cleaves (the very same line of a 

 month ago). This was the prettiest part of the run fences 

 very close together (requiring, alas ! an unnatural instinct of 

 Ware Wire before loosing off, or spurring onward), turf very 

 sound, as becomes the dry and good scenting season of '87- 

 '88, and the pace sufficient (the Master, Mr. Fabling, Mr. Muntz, 

 Mr. Wilkinson, and Mr. Arkwright cutting out the work). 

 Under Braunston Cleaves came the first real delay. Fifty-five 

 minutes to here fox close in front but plenty of go left in him 

 yet. Hunted him short to the right to Ashby St. Ledgers 

 Village turning and twisting by the way had him almost in 

 hand at the latter place but, thanks to holloas and outside 

 excitement, he beat hounds into Welton Place, and there to 

 ground : two and a half hours' run, and a seven- mile point. 



I have not done adequate justice to this well- developed chase. 

 I have not even alluded to the morning's cold fog and the day's 

 lathering sunshine. Still less have I told of the bevy of ladies 

 who shamed many a man out of shirking a truly strong country. 

 To name them would be an impertinence, and involve compari- 

 son, the odium of which I, at all events, do not care to incur. 

 Again, there was one incident came under my immediate eye, 

 and that I must not omit. A sportsman found his horse in a 

 deep ditch and five men in kindly friendship stayed to pull 

 him out. Four of these were farmers and just as fond of 

 being with hounds as others. Now my neck is too sore, and my 

 brain too stupid from craning back to look at the topsy-turvey 



