82 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



mend it. With hounds running fast, there is no prettier 

 course than over the meadows and good fences which border it. 

 These they held along for some little y\ay, then turned into 

 the road, took quick advantage of a signal half a mile down it, 

 and popping out, went on at once towards Rotherby, the un- 

 broken face of each hedge showing how seldom hounds had 

 come this way. Those who temjited the Rotherby oxers read 

 themselves a sharp lesson, that should tend to develop theu* 

 bump of locality for future use. The farmers of Brooksby and 

 Rotherby would seem to have executed their fences under some 

 special contract with the fiend of destruction. Untempting in 

 appearance and uncompromising in reality are these unique 

 erections. An ox-rail is seldom a welcome addition to a stiff 

 fence, still less is it nice to find it set a full horse's length beyond ; 

 but when all this combination is supplemented by a second 

 ditch, the hope of getting over becomes a very forlorn one 

 indeed. The first to present a picture similar in effect and 

 colouring to a rabbit bowled over as he goes away from you 

 was one who ought to have had opportunities of learning what 

 spots should be marked Dangerous. The smash dissipated at 

 least some of the impossibility of the place, but the next was 

 (like the inner line of a fortress) similar but stronger still. 



Lord Grey de Wilton took it where an upright palisade 

 reared its head in the midst ; his good chestnut made a tre- 

 mendous effort, surmounted all he could see, but was brought 

 to earth b}' the second ditch. Another chestnut was put at a 

 like point a little lower down, with all the determination of one 

 of the best men of the day (Capt. Smith) ; but the five-year-old's 

 heart sank within him — he floundered helplessly into the 

 middle, to be extricated from the ox-rail only after a lateral 

 scramble of some yards. It was a hard man and a bold horse 

 that essayed to follow Lord Grey ; but the attempt ended in 

 the disestablishment of the church into the bosom of the 

 thicket, and a sore crown of thorns was the martyr's fate (Rev. 

 T. Hassall). Thus were the adventurers accounted for, one and 

 all ; the wiser or more fortunate many following the hounds 



