23G THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Seasox 



of sjmpath}^ are excited, when at a critical moment she declines 

 the slight eifort that is due and on Avhich yom* whole sport 

 may hinge, gallops through the closing gate, and goes on 

 heedless of the vexation she has caused or of the obligation she 

 has neglected. 



If I have put the case in such a light as may set some of our 

 well-loved sportswomen thinking — not indignantly — I shall feel 

 that my pen has not touched the subject in vain. 



THRUST AND THIRST. 



I HAVE to tell of a find at Thori)e Trussels, a furious 

 glorious twenty minutes to the Punchbowl, the run fox killed 

 in an hour, and a fiesh one taking the body of the pack on (un- 

 aware of its own success) for thirty minutes more ; of how only 

 six horses of steeplechase class could live the pace of the early 

 gallop, and how, as the}' rose Dalb}' Hill, six men were a 

 quarter of a mile to tlie good of their squandered field. These 

 were Lord Castlereagh on a horse that had once scored 

 honours in the Dt)wnshire Plate ; Sir Charles Wolsej'^ on the 

 winner of the Quenby point-to-point chase of the previous 

 Wednesday ; Captain Smith on Blackberry ; Lord Helmsle^', 

 whose mount had won more than once between the flags ; 

 Captain Jacobson and ]\Ir. Owen, both on thoroughbreds of 

 tried capacity. The only person who reached them on the 

 way was Firr, whose faculty for making iqi any deficiency of 

 start has long been marvellous. At the Punchbowl their fox 

 "W'as as blown as their horses ; but, recovering his wind, he 

 gave them yet another climb over Burrough Hill, treated them 

 to the Melton Steeplechase Course before he died, and suc- 

 cumbed in Adams' Gorse. Hounds went right through the 

 single-acre covert with a fresh object in view, and ran him 

 hard and brilliantl.v, a circle that nearly touched Twyford and 

 Burrough. Two or three couple had finished off their hunted 



