iMELTOX AT HOME AND ON VISIT 439 



but ready and able to take their part as of yore, though the 

 young bloods, men and women (if such horrid term be 

 admissible, even in these equality days), are said to be 

 " terrific " whenever country and occasion tempt. The hale 

 veteran of Melton is still to the fore, and one was delighted 

 to see Colonel Forester ; while Captain Boyce (if I may 

 presume on old acquaintance so to say) is still the youngest 

 and best equipped of all. Having duly, perhaps unneces- 

 sarily, made my obeisance to the good Quorn country, I 

 returned, gratefully bearing away its pleasant dust upon my 

 shoulders ; nay, further, I renewed acquaintance not only 

 with Melton's talented hatter, who once again put my 

 shattered beaver into shape, but by the accident of hospi- 

 tality with the den of the dear old doctor deceased, recalling 

 pleasant memories of a lip sewn up and of the first collar- 

 bone that refused to knit e'en under the pressure of a snuff- 

 laden thumb. 



On Tuesday a wholesome shower refreshed the rapidly 

 parching earth, and its effects were shown in a happy 

 afternoon's sport with the Pytchley. Wednesday, also, 

 began with two promising trifles, each too soon at an end, 

 but the evening's was a sterling run of forty minutes, before 

 a serious check. The meet had been at North Kilworth. 

 I maintain that our fields of this broken season are by no 

 means of monstrous proportion, albeit to-day we had 

 visitors from every quarter, many of these, perhaps, on their 

 way to the Rugby Hunt Steeplechases. I cannot but think 

 that Melton has been in some degree acting the kindly part 

 of safety-valve. Well, there were enough, of familiars and 

 strangers, to spread the country in rushing force, when 

 from Kilworth Sticks hounds drove a fox, whose brush was 

 hare as a bell-rope, across the Kilworth demesne and 

 territory to Stanford Hall. It boots not to dwell longer 

 upon this pursuit, beyond mentioning that the first quarter- 

 hour was pleasant, the first few minutes exciting, and that 

 within the hour the mangy fox unfortunately escaped, 

 possibly by lying down in one of the little brakes by South 

 Kilworth. 



But the second trifle was, in its brief career, as warm 

 and exhilarating as might be, akin, indeed, to the Hunt Cup 



