124 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



Oh, for another quarter of an hour of daj-light ! again gi-oaned 

 forth master, huntsman, and field, as once more they succumbed 

 to darkness, and whipped off the hounds at 4.25. Thus they 

 had been running for an hour and ten minutes, during which 

 time I do not remember the hounds to have been once lifted. 

 The distance from point to point was nearly six miles ; and 

 the Master, Lord Gre}' de Wilton, Capt. King, Messrs. Ernest 

 Chaplin and Samuda, were all who went on to the end. A 

 splendid day's sport it was indeed ; and a fit sequence to the 

 good Friday preceding. It is only just to say that Tom Firr 

 never shone to greater advantage than on these daj's — a living 

 instance that a grass country need not spoil a promising 

 huntsman, as so many people insist. And, sujjerbly as Mr. 

 Coup land always mounts his men/thej^ never seem to have been 

 so well carried as this season. 



Such have been the doings of the Quorn, followed up on 

 Tuesda}'^ in like form b}' tlie Cottesmore, who, from Little 

 Dalby Laurels (there are Dalbies enough in the country to 

 confuse a stranger, or even a sojourner of two years' standing, 

 but it is Little Dalby which boasts the squire who gives us 

 sport so good and frequent), hunted over Burrough Hill, and 

 then drove their fox straight away over the grass for twenty 

 minutes to ground. They went almost exactly over the 

 ground of part of the Quorn run "on Friday, passed close by 

 Burrough village, filled tlie Twyford Brook till it almost 

 choked with men and horses, and, keeping to the right of 

 John o' Gaunt, stopped below the earths at Springfield 

 Spinneys. Colonel Forester, Lord Carington, and Custance 

 were leading over the steeplechase course, and were prominent 

 members of the first half-dozen over the brook in question. 



Once, and once onl}-, have I had to relate such a week of 

 sport. This was last winter, when for eight daj's run succeeded 

 run on every side. But then we could only just struggle 

 through the mud, and our horses could hardly drag their tired 

 limbs along after a mile or two. Now we have been riding 

 over grass that would scarcely soil a satin shoe : indifferent 



