278 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



Never was truer prophecy uttered than was couched in the 

 Meltonian's muttered caution, as his horse plunged up the 

 ascent, " Steady, old man, there may be galloping yet ! " 

 "Hope there will be," you answer audibly, and pull your own 

 struggling animal into a quiet crawl. But the Punchbowl is 

 bristling, echoing already. A brace of foxes show theii- heads 

 where the upper gi'oup is gathered, and retire hm-riedly together 

 — the one a grey old rogue, the other a peifect leviathan in 

 vulpine shape. A thu'd, a tiny red vixen, flashes through the 

 bushes near. But it is the leviathan with whom the fun is to 

 be, and whose destiny is sealed. Goddard's shrill scream 

 rises through the mist; Neal's horn cuts the fog; and you 

 must go — somehow, somewhere. You have chosen your fate 

 above, and by your choice you must abide. So gallop and go 

 now, though you gallop in uncertainty, and you go in half- 

 despair. The horn rings again out of the valley ; the cry is 

 still swelling below. Neither is nearer towards you ; but the 

 sounds recede, and hope grows fainter. With circus-like 

 rapidity you sweep round the edge of tlie gully, dipping under 

 overhanging branch of ash and oak, floundering over rabbit- 

 holes, and slipping over tree-roots. Now you see how affairs 

 have been going, and now you are pushing on no longer in 

 the dark. The pack has broken towards Pickwell; is a 

 field ahead of you ; and you find as the fog lifts slightly, you 

 are no better than fiftieth in the rush. Right and left, pinlc 

 and black are flinging over the fences to gain the wirebound 

 Dalby and Pickwell road, already crowded for the only crossing. 

 Into the bordering spmney you take your turn, and splash in 

 and out of the muddy brook, to gain the grass on the right 

 bank. Mr. Hugh Lowther keeps the left bank^ followed only 

 by Lord Helmsley and Mr. L. Flower ; hounds favour him in 

 the next quarter mile ; recross the strong fenced brook where 

 no one can follow them ; and give him a turn of which he 

 makes fullest use as they rise the Leesthorpe big field and its 

 short deepfm-rows. Colonel Forester, too, has remained below 

 the Punchbowl mouth ; then leaving the high plantation on 



