168 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



we shall have more straight riding, more concentrated zest, 

 and (possibly) more consideration for hounds than in this first 

 blush — for men have hardly " got their sea legs " yet. Talking 

 of colds, it may interest delicate readers to leani they are 

 very summarily treated and ejected in this school of pharmacy. 

 There is no time for coddhng or making a maladj^ of them, 

 unless it is to the extent of a basin of gi^uel and a tallow candle 

 on a Sunday night. On first appearance they are at once 

 thoroughly fumigated with Mr. Carlin's pastiles, then clapped 

 in between a bottle of i)ink wine and a mustard plaster, and so 

 nipped in the bud. If this treatment does not suffice, try 

 two extra waistcoats, and a pulling horse with the Quorn lady 

 pack ; and if tJiis doesn't cm'e you, ask somebody else's advice. 

 Well, but I have a run to tell; so let us rejoin the sweet 

 "middle pack" of the Belvoir, as they trot down to Burbage's 

 Covert this sunny Wednesday morning — Gillard on the con- 

 fidential grey meaning business, and om'selves confident or 

 careful as our mount or nerves determine us. We have abeady 

 snatched an after-breakfast gossip outside Newman's Gorse, 

 whence a brace of cubs have previously done duty as blood to 

 the young entry, and so a blanlc draw has robbed us of our 

 deserts, to wit, being left behind for our own loquacity. We 

 have bustled anxiously over a few little fences from Waltham 

 Thorns, and perhaps even larked over the Thorpe Ai-nold 

 Brook under no other necessity than that of exuberant spirits, 

 and we have seen a first fox lost from sheer want of scent, after 

 two miles of difficult tracking. Thus one o'clock finds us 

 basking in the meadow below Mr. Bm'bage's invaluable covert 

 — Melton represented by Colonel and Miss Markham, Messrs. 

 Lubbock, Creyke, Behrens, Younger, and Parker, and Captains 

 Smith and Atkinson ; the ducal country by Messrs. Welby, 

 Mirehouse, Burbage, Thorold, Mr. and Miss Turner, &c. ; the 

 Cottesmore by Mr. Heathcote ; and the world in general by a 

 body of men by whom hunting is regarded as almost a sme qud 

 non to enjoyable existence, and as a component part of a well- 

 governed empire. 



