1880-81.] A LATE BEGINNING. 331 



A LATE BEGIXXIXG. 



The smartest item of the Quorn liistoiy for November, 

 1880, was enacted on Friday last, November 27th, after 

 meeting at Gaddesby. A violent wet morning reduced the 

 muster to a small and roughly-clad field hardly in keeping 

 with the dignity of the Hunt, scarcely a member of which had 

 courage, or it may be extravagance, enough to appear at the 

 covertside in pink. Indeed, as far as I remember, about the 

 only gay and orthodox garment was the outcome of Irish 

 landed property — a fact that may be useful to Messrs. Parnell 

 and Dillon, serving them to " point a moral and adorn a 

 tale." 



The gallop I refer to came from Ashby Pastures — only 

 seventeen or eighteen minutes, but very fast and very charming 

 — a burst, hardly a run, but very welcome in this hitherto 

 eventless season. 



Let us suppose that you, reader, never saw the jungly depths 

 of Ashby P.astures. You will find it a square manageable 

 wood of a hundred acres or so, on a gentle slope towai'ds the 

 east. There is comparatively little timber left to obscure the 

 view or obstruct the sound of horn or hound ; but bramble 

 and thorn grow rankly, and matted grass works in to choke up 

 every interstice. Even the rides are almost obliterated by the 

 wild growth of covert ; and a few mud-tracks, deep and narrow, 

 are the only paths by which you can wade your way through 

 the wood. However, you Avork slowly on after the huntsman, 

 hock-deep in soft sludge, while the gale whistles and howls 

 through the trees, cutting the scene of coming action com- 

 pletely out of hearing of the many who still remain upwind of 

 the covert. There is no crash about the hound-music that 

 proclaims a find. The thicket is too dense for that. The 

 wavering cry is scarcely exciting ; for it seems impossible that 

 a fox can be driven quickly out of such a fastness. But he 

 wants no driving — the wiry form that comes bounding over 



