292 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



plough is at work over the next hedge ; and bokl EejTiard 

 hates the implement as heartil}" as j-ou do. It has turned 

 liim in his track, only half a field ; and most of that is saved 

 b}' the help of the ploughman. Steadily, not swiftly, they 

 carry it on over the brow to the Keyham and Hungerton 

 brook. Busily they take it across of themselves ; and quicker 

 now they speed those low level meadows that foxes have, 

 this season, so frequentlj' favom-ed. Every fence is a de- 

 light when horses bound, as now, off the surface. It is no 

 labour to them to jump or to gallop to-day ; for even the 

 weakening sun is hid l)ehind a cool grey curtain. And hounds 

 run better, more vigorously, than they have done for a week or 

 more. They want no help as they pass Humberstone Spin- 

 ney ; and bear ui)wards for the village of Barkbj' Thorpe. 

 There he goes, not a field in front ! Keep quiet, and let 

 them bring it on ! But tlicy hang on the dry arable. Firr 

 takes them in hand on the second, drops them on to his 

 brush, and the rest is the old glad scene of baying hounds, 

 delighted huntsmen, screaming whips, smoking horses and 

 beaming faces. A trifle short oi forty minutes, as we glanced 

 at the watch in that first deep meadow, and remembered again 

 the duties of timekeeper as Firr's n-Jio-ichooj) called in his 

 followers. 



How hounds could run to-day was proved again with the 

 fox from the Laurels at Scraptoft. He never went straight ; 

 but they always ran fast. And they twisted and turned with 

 him over ever}' field in a half-mile western semicircle round 

 Scraptoft Hall, till in thirty-five minutes they pulled up at a 

 drain between that place and Baikby. " A jolly day's sport 

 for March," came the verdict from ever}^ tongue — heartil}' and 

 gratefully. 



A BAGGEAVE FINALE. 



April lOtb, half a gale from the nor'-east, with cold, 

 tlriving rain, but the glass rising and the turf full of mois- 



