46 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Seasox 



quietly sat down in a ditch, and blocked up the only negotiable 

 holes in a blackthorn screen ; of how treacherous rabbits let in 

 one of the boldest of the southerners, and entrapped many 

 smaller fry as they crossed a fair delusive pasture ; and of how 

 two guiding stars (one the high priest of the ceremonies) 

 dropped earthwards when most prominent in their pilotage. 

 But such little matters are always to be delicately and carefully 

 alluded to. If a man is riding " his young one," he is possibly 

 rather gratified by the solicitude that prompts you to ask if 

 he is hurt ; if he is riding a fhiexd's horse, he is absolutely 

 pleased, and takes the inquiry as an encomium on his thrusting 

 powers ; but if he has been hapless enough to come under your 

 notice when his " wouldn't-take-250-for-him " crock brings him 

 to grief, and he is perhaps meditating a spring sale, he will 

 positivel}'^ hate you. 



But under any circumstances men are coy about their mis- 

 fortunes being paraded before the public, very properly con- 

 sidering that they stand on their heads for their own amuse- 

 ment, and not for other people's. Well, the line was marked 

 by loose horses and topbooted pedestrians for about a mile 

 parallel to the dreaded Keyham Bottom, till Messrs. Keynard 

 and Coventry were almost simultaneousl}'- struck with the 

 remembrance of the spot where Capts. Robertson and I'ludyer 

 made it practicable a twelvemonth since, hit it oif exactly, and, 

 with the pack as a connecting link, sailed away up the hill to 

 the Keyham and Billesdon road. The boggy bottom did not 

 stop Macbride, though it brought some scrambling and 

 splashing to his immediate followers, and he was there to cheer 

 the pack over as tlie}^ crossed the road. Three fields down to 

 another road (the Hungerton to Keyham), then two more 

 fences, and the chase was over, as far as its bright, sparkling 

 fun was concerned. But even this ten or twelve minutes, aided 

 by the warm sunlight, were enough to cause shaking tails and 

 foaming flanks, for the pace was so great there was not time 

 for a pull at a fence. True, they hit it off agam, and as they 

 trotted along round Hungerton and Baggrave there was ample 



