16 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



At such a time half a minute more or less will make all the 

 dift'erence in a quick thing. Not onh' will hounds get such a 

 start while you are baulked and jammed that you have to ride 

 and tui'n only with the stragglers,, but so many men get before 

 you that all the delight of taking your fences as you see them, 

 is lost. But in this case the ver}' first fence put all on equal 

 terms, for an oxer planted in a deep dip made men tuni right 

 and left for a feasible spot. Mr. Foster kindly broke down 

 the far rail on the left, while some equally venturous spirit 

 performed the same philanthropic office on the right; and. 

 this exceptional difficulty past, the field spread out to take all 

 that offered, and raced to keep on terms with the fl.ving pack. 



Circling round from Scraptoft Village, men were loosed over 

 the fine pastures alongside the Keyham Brook for a mile or so, 

 till bearing to the left they crossed the bottom and pointed for 

 the Foxholes. Falls and casualties on every side — to see, to 

 hear of, and to note afterwards in crushed hats and dirty coats. 

 Falls, not of potterers or blunderers, but of the artistes of the 

 riding world — falls attributable only to the anxious desire to be 

 with the hounds, and that, if they threw the perpetrators com- 

 pletely^ out for the time, at least served to open a vacancy, of 

 which there were scores ready to avail themselves. A dozen of 

 these we miglit instance ; but, if Mr. Turner, of Stoke, bad 

 any feelings of regret for the lost place entailed by his bold 

 essay at the four unjumpable ash rails, he may yet find con- 

 solation in the fact that he acted the best of Samaritans to 

 his followers ; and, as Eosalind said of her lover Orlando 

 " Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well became the 

 ground." 



The Keyham Bottom has ever been a bugbear in these 

 parts, and many a resident has pronounced it impracticable ; 

 but the great wall of China would have been charged under 

 such circumstances ; and a summersault and a scramble 

 opened two breaches in the knotted fringe that guarded the 

 far bank, and half a dozen men were over almost without a 

 pause. 



