The Sport of Our <*Ancestors 



have been at Ashby Pasture, in the Quorn country, with 

 Mr. Osbaldeston's hounds, in the year 1826, when that 

 pack was at the height of its well-merited celebrity. Let 

 us also indulge ourselves with a fine morning in the first 

 week of February, and at least two hundred well-mounted 

 men by the cover's side. Time being called — say a quarter 

 past eleven, nearly our great-grandfather's dinner-hour — 

 the hounds approach the furze-brake, or the gorse, as it is 

 called in that region. ' Hark in^ hark ! ' with a slight cheer, 

 and perhaps one wave of his cap, says Mr. Osbaldeston, 

 who long hunted his own pack, and in an instant he has 

 not a hound at his horse's heels. In a very short time the 

 gorse appears shaken in various parts of the cover — ap- 

 parently from an unknown cause, not a single hound being 

 for some minutes visible. Presently one or two appear, 

 leaping over some old furze which they cannot push through, 

 and exhibit to the field their glossy skins and spotted sides. 



* Oh ! you beauties ! ' exclaims some old Meltonian, rap- 

 turously fond of the sport. Two minutes more elapse ; 

 another hound slips out of cover, and takes a short turn 

 outside with his nose to the ground and his stern lashing 

 his side — thinking, no doubt, he might touch on a drag, 

 should Reynard have been abroad in the night. Hounds 

 have no business to think, thinks the second whipper-in, 

 who observes him ; but one crack of his whip, with 



* Rasselas, Rasselas, where are you going, Rasselas ? Get 

 to cover, Rasselas I ' and Rasselas immediately disappears. 

 Five minutes more pass away. ' No fox here,' says one. 



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