112 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



it ended Thurnby Spinney was found to be near at hand. The 

 holding power of this little place being more in proportion to 

 its owner's majestic castle, hard bj', than its own apparent 

 insignificance, every eye and ear was on the qui vive when 

 the hounds were put in, and coffee-housing had no chance 

 among the keen throng that threw in their fortunes with 

 Mr. Tailby. 



From Thumb}- Spinney to Scraptoft Gorse is but a short 

 ten minutes when hounds go as straight and fast as they did 

 now ; but it was a pretty foretaste of still choicer morsels ; and 

 to skim down tlie one and up the other side of grassy valleys 

 such as the Tliurnby and Norton country can boast — fences 

 fair and guileless, and the turf seeming to lift you along its 

 surface — is always delight, however brief. Still more is it 

 delight in November when you look for drawbacks — and this 

 year, instead of drawbacks, find perfection. Men throw their 

 hearts more full}' and readily into the sport at first com- 

 mencement than at any time, are more appreciative, and 

 incline to view everything with the rosy spectacles which have 

 served them in their forward gaze during the summer. There 

 is a freshness and novelty about early sensation that with 

 many people wears off only too rapidly as the season goes on. 

 True, a hlasc hunting man is an anomaly that at no time exists 

 openly and avowedly ; but an habitual grumbler is an object 

 only one degree less pitiable, and he is a creature that, alas ! 

 does occasionally appear in the hunting field. However, 

 spleen, discontent, and moroseness are none of them yet repre- 

 sented hereabouts, for every tongue is wagging gaily and daily 

 on the bright aspect of the present, and each day there is fresh 

 food for gratulation and discussion. Perfect weather, abso- 

 lutely perfect condition of ground, and superlatively perfect 

 supply of foxes ; each Hunt in an equally good state, and 

 each pack of rare stamp ; good sport plentiful — nay, continual 

 — and good-fellowship supreme. There, our panegyric is 

 finished ; but we rave not without cause ; is there not method 

 in our madness ? "Wlio shall blame that we are happy while 



