1,873—74.] ■ KIRBY GATE. 105 



of them have arrived only just in time to give out hreeches, 

 tapes, and spur straps, and look round the stable. On Friday 

 and Saturda}' they came trooping down by mail, express, and 

 even special, while neither man nor beast of the Leicester fly- 

 owners could call Sunday a day of rest. Thus on Monday 

 there was a larger muster of faces familiar and distinguished 

 than Kir by Gate has seen for years. Good news flies nearly as 

 fast as ill (for is it not sought after, while the other is shunned?), 

 and so it would seem that everybody had heard it said that the 

 country was full of foxes, that the farmers one and all would 

 swear by Mr. Coupland, and that the grass was soft and 

 springy as indiarubber. At any rate, there turned up sucli a 

 goodly company of landowners and birds of passage, of old 

 friends and brilliant riders, that one's mind picture for once 

 fell flat and dull-coloured beside realit}'. There were two 

 points, though, about the assemblage that it was impossible 

 not to notice, and which at first thought were very diflicult to 

 reconcile. One wa?;, that a marvellous majority of the regulars 

 were there to tim.^ ; the other was, that not a stranger of 

 notability (we except the two or three who had ridden from 

 long distances) was present. But the foreign contingent and 

 the recruits seldom fall into the ranks so early ; and, if it is to 

 be as in other years, and we may augur from the commence- 

 ment, we shall have a larger force than ever in the field by 

 Christmas. Already there is scarcely a stall — still less a house 

 — to be had in Melton ; there is such prospect before us as 

 few can remember at any previous inauguration — a country 

 brimming over with the raw material, and bound to a master 

 who has worked himself into popularity among all classes, who 

 has built up a pack of hounds that will do credit to the Hunt, 

 and who has brought out a huntsman — (well, we shall have lots 

 of chances of telling of him unless very difl'erent to the same 

 man last year) ; plenty of wet in the ground ; everything, in 

 fact, to — 



Announce a season potent to renew, 

 Bar frost and snow, the instinctive joj's of sport, 

 And nobler cares than listless summer knew. 



