172 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



A NORTHERN VETERAN. 



I FIND it noted that the Cottesmore had a long and severe 

 gallop on Tuesday, Nov. 21st, from Loddington Redditch, 

 through Brown's Wood, by Withcote Hall, Launde Wood, 

 Brook Priory, and Oakham Pastures. Near here the huntsman 

 for a critical minute or two was imprisoned in the railway, 

 while his whip viewed the fox beside it, and tried in vain to 

 get the pack to him. When the former escaped he soon got 

 to work again, but it was slow hunting over the green flat 

 past Oakham. Their gallant fox was crawling about the 

 hedgerows when they reached the farthest point of the run — 

 Hambleton Pasture ; but the delay in the railroad saved him. 



He could not have travelled less than twelve or thirteen 

 miles, and passed covert after covert without touching one. 

 It was truly a magnificent rmi for hounds, and, though devoid 

 of any of the usual incidents of the field as far as riders were 

 concerned, a run worth journe3dng far to witness. It must be 

 confessed that — though, as some of our detractors would have 

 it, we by no means go out in Leicestershii'e solely to ride over 

 fences — we do hke a jump or two when om- horses are fresh, 

 the turf honest, the fences fair, and hoimds running as they 

 can only run over the grass. The impression must not, how- 

 ever, be given that there was abolutely no fencmg in tliis run 

 — for it was obvious that one fine old sportsman, who had 

 travelled far to witness this, and has been paying us a visit 

 fi'om the county whose capital is "bonnie Newcastle," had suc- 

 ceeded in finding at least one bullfinch. He is ever to be seen 

 pushing to the front as keenly as, but a thousand times more 

 cleverly than, an Oxford undergraduate, and to-day he carried 

 away the proof in a feature scarred and crossed like nothmg 

 but a newly-fired foreleg (if he will forgive the sunile). But it 

 was in the Quorn run of the previous day that he was to be 

 seen to best advantage, when throughout there could be but 

 one opinion, viz.. 



