486 FOX-HOUND, FOREST, AND PRAIRIE. 



for it in vain. The brothers had it in a moment, by a common 

 prompting that could have suggested itself only to one of them 

 and to that one by an intuitive talent shared by no one else, 

 " He pitied his poor brother Fabian, and laughed as he raced 

 for the gap." 



Much more to the point was the retort of two burly farmers 

 of Kilworth on foot both of them, but radiant with kindly 

 pleasure as they holloaed the beaten fox and held a gate open 

 into the road. To them the passing sinner, having broken at 

 least three flights of rails during the day, and knocked down all 

 the loose thorns he could find. ''We've given your land a rare 

 dressing to-day. Hope you don't mind ? " " Quite right too ! 

 We love to see you come across here ! ! " Show me better 

 feeling than this, gentlemen ; and I'll admit there is a better 

 land than the Shires ! 



Our fox made good the canal-spinney by Welford Station, ran 

 its length, and then there was holloaing in two directions. 

 Hounds kept a line; but here it must have been that they 

 changed from their quarry. Forty-five minutes, or thereabouts,, 

 up to Bos worth Park dating from the turn back from Hemplovv 

 and the sudden accession of pace. Human prescience could 

 scarcely be expected to prompt the ordinary subject to dive for 

 his watch at such exact moment. It occurred to one that they 

 might now run, and we hurried on upon the offchance. But 

 that the next half hour should be excellent, and three-quarters- 

 should be all hard-running, seemed anything but likely. 



In the spurt of the first early minutes across the vale, I can 

 remember seeing Mr. Hipwell (and who with better right for 

 did we not riddle his fences heartily three times that day ?) 

 Messrs. E. Baring, B. Chester, Guthrie, Jameson, Sheriffe, 

 Atterbury, and Adamthwaite, with the huntsman and five or six 

 more, in the far van. 



They followed a fresh fox from Bosworth up into the high- 

 lands of Marston, where the snow, and his start, fairly beat 

 them. 



