6 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Seasox 



and keenness, having earned his sj)urs in remoter climes, 

 yearns to try his mettle where he will meet foemen more worthy 

 of his steel. Cock of his own dunghill, he longs to fight a 

 main in a nobler ai'ena and against sterner stuff. Let not our 

 brethren of the clay " get their backs up," for all who know the 

 historic lore of Leicestershire have read of the doughty 

 champions who have appeared to bear all before them. "With 

 nerve still unshaken, and with knowledge and experience 

 gained by patient study of hounds daily working their Avay 

 by inches over the cold fallows, they teach many a lesson of 

 how to Avatch and how to ride to those greyhound sportsmen 

 who have never been entered to the solid realities of hunting, 

 and who have only been taught to recognise the harum-scarum 

 of a burst. Who, if old enough, does not remember — or, if 

 younger, has not read of — Sir Miles of Gloucestershire, of 15st. 

 or more, who made all Melton shiver in their shoes ? Have 

 not we, of our own experience, seen Hope Barton of the Bads- 

 worth come down to hold his own — aye, and more than his own 

 — against the pink of High Leicestershire ? And these were 

 but casual visitors ; whereas we would point to the absolute 

 necessity of every man's being broken to quiet hunting else- 

 where before he can ride fairly and with justice to hounds over 

 the grass. In the same way we consider that no huntsman can 

 arrive at the summiim honum of excellence who owes his 

 education solely to the Shires. In a cold-scenting country he 

 is continually called upon to exercise the virtue of thinking for 

 himself — a necessary qualit}' which, we read, "the Eed Prince " 

 is ever impressing on his generals, and to whicli 'tis said all 

 their marvellous success is attributable. A huntsman who 

 has derived all his lessons from the quick work — of which he, 

 as first whip, is called upon to fulfil the quickest part — with a 

 crack pack, is too prone to become flashy in attempts to be 

 brilliant, and is sadl}^ wanting in that patient perseverance 

 which is all needful to true hunting. Perhaps he is often 

 pushed into this fault by the overwhelming pressure of his 

 field ; but this is one of the difficulties he wants the art to con- 



