Season- 1880—81.] OCTOBER BREWING. 329 



liones% and successfully they chivvied the cubs in Baggrave 

 Covert till midday, Avhen hounds lunched upon one at the 

 Hall door, and men could not but accept the example and the 

 General's ever-read}^ cheer. 



But the run ? Casual readers need only glance at the fact 

 that it was a point of ci[jht miles and a half in one hour and 

 five minutes, and entirely over the grass. Quornites will follow 

 me while I sketch geography and outline. They all know 

 Carr Bridge Spinney — a miniature plantation half way between 

 Baggrave and Lowesby. It was from here the chase began, 

 and it was at Stapleford Park it ended. As is only to be 

 expected in mid-October, it was a purely local field that 

 clustered on the hillside. They watched one fox twist into a 

 rabbit-hole at their veiy feet ; and when in a moment a second 

 one scurried along the brookside, thej^ were content to set him 

 down as another of the same sort, and to look forward only to 

 some brief spell of hedgerow-hunting, till he too should be 

 accounted for. So they cantered leisurely through a couple of 

 gates, scarcely realising, apparently, that hounds had not only 

 flung themselves out before voice and horn had summoned 

 them, but were already away over the brow, a first leafy hedge 

 drowning all but their sjiarkling cry. Some half-dozen men 

 were awake enough to take up running at once ; the rest only 

 gradually awoke to the fact that to see hounds required riding 

 to them — now as much as heretofore. To Thimble Hall was 

 an uphill mile of aftermath, with a couple of pieces of timber, 

 and a brace of blind fences on its slope ; and now the pack 

 were full}- a field to the good, and galloping had to be earnest 

 to be of use. Few studs have galloping condition in October t 

 and he was a lucky man who had condition under him (as 

 complete as was needed) to-day. Crossing the road b}' 

 Thimble Hall, hounds bore down for a brief moment for 

 Twyford, then crossing the road between that place and Mxxx- 

 rough, passed over the new railway and the brow beyond. 

 Circling towards the Melton Steeplechase course, they bent to 

 the right again ; and, putting Burrough A''illage on the left. 



