THE OLD HUNTSMAN AND THE YOUNG MASTER 



second fox in Ingoldsby Wood, and sent him along to Bulby 

 in twenty-five minutes. When the fox got to Kirkby Wood he 

 ran the rides, but hounds forced him away and killed him^ in 

 Morton Fen just as darkness fell." 



One more instance may serve to show the head these 

 hounds carried with a good scent. At three o'clock on 

 December the 2ist, 1839, they found a fox in Lawn Hollow, 

 and one hour later, almost to a minute, they killed him near 

 Grimston. The pack ran literally abreast over the fields, 

 and never checked or hovered all the way. 



It would be tedious and useless to give the outlines of 

 more runs here, but I have put together a few of those which 

 Leicestershire and Lincolnshire men may like to trace on the 

 map in order to compare the lines of former days with those 

 we ride now. It may also serve to disabuse our minds of a 

 certain error, that sport was much better then than it is now, 

 whereas the run of foxes seems much the same, and the 

 pace of hounds and horses not to diflfer greatly. The rail- 

 ways, no doubt, are the great spoil sports, but even they 

 are not nearly so bad as they might be, and the considera- 

 tion for the interests of hunting shown by the companies 

 and their servants is beyond all praise. The officials have 

 all the instincts of sportsmen, and never spoil a chase or run 

 into a pack if they can help it. I remember, when I was 

 spending a winter at Burton Overy, that the station-master 

 at Kibworth (a capital sportsman by the way) told me that 

 his signal-man had often seen a litter of foxes playing on 

 the platform in the early morning, and the old vixen used 

 to lay up her cubs near the goods yard of the station. 



Another idea, not uncommon among hunting men, is that 

 in former times there was no opposition to. hunting. But 

 this is not so. On the contrary, there has never been a 

 time when hunting has been without its troubles and its 

 enemies. Whatever may be said and written about the 

 benefits of hunting to the farmer — and no doubt they are 

 great in the long run — it must not be forgotten that the 

 advantages are also for the most part indirect, and therefore 

 to many minds imperceptible. 



145 L 



