264 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Seasox 



shoukl break. Oh, it's airful ! A silence now, such as even 

 the noisiest — and most irreverent — dare not break ; while in 

 the distance, like sounds of wanton revehy, re-echo the dese- 

 crating tones of horn and hound. Even Tom Firr does not 

 smile, nor laugh aloud. Have 30U ever seen that picture at 

 Munich, of Apollo about to flay Mars5'as — the result and 

 wager of their musical combat ? It has no bearing, of course, 

 on the present crisis — but have you seen it ? 



But a shrill repeated scream breaks the spell, at least to 

 those who can take an unofficial view of matters. And twenty 

 men rush off to the stranger horn, to which hounds are 

 streaming from the covert. Xatm'e — human, fox hunting 

 nature, can't resist the call. And forsaking their colours the 

 men of Quorn chime in with tlie foreigners — "just to see that 

 fair pla}' is enacted." Fair play they see, and are witnesses, 

 moreover, to the fact that Gillard kills his fox (a veteran 

 thoroughly run to death) in another twenty minutes' hunting. 

 He had brought him from Hose Covert across the Vale — quick 

 and sharp past Sherbrook's Covert over a capital line (grass 

 all the way) by Parson's Thorns into The Curate — to kill him, 

 as we have seen, close to Widmerpool Village, and to spoil the 

 Quorn afternoon. 



GEORGE WHYTE MELVILLE. 



LiivE a black heavy cloud, choking the breath and pressing 

 on the heart with its cold damp weight, came the news that 

 spread from mouth to mouth at tlie Quorn meet at Eearsby 

 (Friday last, December 6th). " AVhat, WhyU: Melville of all 

 men ? " was the one first utterance of the hundred who there 

 learned the loss of a dear friend, were there told of the sudden 

 awful death of the man who in himself was almost the life and 

 voice of foxhunting, and there heard that the Chase had 

 brought the end of the one that it least of all could spare. It 

 is not so much of AVhyte Melville the writer, the poet, I am 



