132 THE CREAM OJT LEICESTERSHIRE. [Si:asux 



named, who was going like a youth and a feather-weight, was 

 afterwards heard to say that, even in his long experience, he 

 had never seen hounds fly along as they did now. To pop in 

 and out of an icy road at such a pace was simply tempting 

 Pi'ovidence. Most of the leaders took a steady pull ; hut a 

 rash four-year-old, refusing to take the office, paid the penalty 

 by remaining hard and fast in the second ditch. A harmless 

 series of summersaults took tlitr hapless rider many yards 

 further in the pursuit, and there he la}-, sadly " moralising 

 the spectacle," like Jaques and his wounded stag : — 



'"Tis rif^lit," nuotli Ii»' ; " tluis misery doth jiait 

 The flux of tompaiiy .... 

 Sweep on, you [gay ami thrusting] citizens ; 

 'Tis just the fasliion ; wlieretbre <lo you look 

 Upon this poor and broken bankrupt here ? " 



Lest a spice of malice should appear to have suggested the 

 quotation, let it he known that the broken bankrupt was none 

 other than your unhappy contril)utor, thus fallen in the dis- 

 charge of his onerous duties. But in] Leicestershire a man is 

 never in such case 



Lett and abandoned of a careless herd, 



who, 



Full of the pastime jump along by him, 

 And never stay to greet him : 



SO the parallel only holds partially good. 



So tremendous was the pace, that twelve minutes of it was 

 enough to burst up this fox. He lay down by a haja-ick ; the 

 liounds bristled past him, and, throwing up their heads beyond, 

 gave him time to slip off again unseen. Soon, liowever, they 

 were once more on his track, hunted up to him, and killed him 

 in the open at the end of another quarter of an hour. 



