202 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



merged into the Burton Flat in front, while the steep heights 

 of Dalby stood imminent on the right. 



There were lots of foxes, and lots of shouting as two or 

 three of them broke away in view. Hounds left at the bottom, 

 and the light fences below gave opportunity to many a man to 

 learn a new horse, or even to recall the feeling of a saddle. 

 For in cases not few the knickerbocker has of late been more 

 familiar than the buckskin, and legs that last year seemed 

 moulded for the top have recently been proudly swelling under 

 the stocking, and now rebelled painfully against their tight 

 imprisonment. 



The chase that began and ended on the Dalby Manor had 

 but few features ; and so we may pass on to Sir Francis 

 Burdett's covert, where holloas were already resounding, and 

 where we arrived to learn that a fox liad already broken 

 and been headed back. Ten minutes elapsed ; the bright sun 

 had veiled its face in some welcome clouds, and the field, by 

 this time reduced from its holiday dimensions to a workman- 

 like cadre, ranged itself in the road. Some men ate their 

 lunch, some changed their horses, some kept an ear open, 

 some did not; but all began at last to fancy that Eeynard 

 meant to leave them in quiet possession of the open country. 

 A mild holloa, no one knew whence, roused them onh" by 

 degrees to a sense of the changing situation ; but the signal 

 was so faint, and the summons so undecided, that for some 

 moments the mass remained inert and inactive. Fortunately 

 for them the jiack too were all abroad in a bad scenting covert, 

 and the huntsman had but a single and roundabout egress. 

 But, when once he laid hounds on, they rose the hill quickly 

 for Dalby House, and no one could complain of loss of start or 

 loss of chance. For a minute or two again the pursuit hung 

 as the fox doubled in a slender belt of plantation. Once free 

 from this, he started, with hounds close at him, for the Punch- 

 bowl, that offered its tempting shelter only half a mile away. 

 But he wanted no harbour yet, and asked only for a fair field 

 and a clear course. So, whisking round the left of the Punch- 



