348 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



his quarters into the sack, with a view to further proceedings. 

 Tlie next step was to conve}' him to suitahle open ground. 

 He was then shot out of his hag with a good start, and off he 

 went over the country as black as soot couki make him, a type 

 to ilhistrate how the crow flies. His flight was a pretty strong 

 one, too ; for, though hounds never checked behind him, and 

 his sable form could from time to time be seen flitting just in 

 front, it took them two-and-twent}' minutes before they could 

 blacken their jaws on his waistcoat. An incident in this latter 

 scurry fell but alarmingl}- short of a catastrophe. The ponds 

 were still ahnost skateable, while snow lay in scattered ridges 

 under the hedges so freely that half the jumps Avere on 

 to the most speculative landing. The undaunted pluck that 

 carries one of the most prominent of our lad}- riders * so gene- 

 rally into a good i)lace, to-day dropped her quite out of her 

 dejjth into a deep dug watering place, where she was only quite 

 accidentally descried from a distance, fighting hard against the 

 surrounding ice and the mad eflorts of her horse to make aise 

 of her as a stepping-stone. Twice she was knocked quite 

 under Avater, and once only felt her feet on any ground at all. 

 Sympathy and outstretched hunting crops arrived only just in 

 time, and a good constitution brouglit her out hunting the next 

 day apparently none tlie worse. But it was a perilous adven- 

 ture, with nothing that approached the laughable about it ; and 

 it would have been hard and inapj^ropriate indeed, if one, who 

 will dare anything that others will b}' field or flood (even to 

 swimming the Wreake), should have ended her days in a horse- 

 pond. 



An Interim. — The next day (Friday, Feb. 4) the Quorn 

 Avere in due course at Great Dalby — a field of four hundred 

 (fierce and well mounted) taking the place of the quiet home 

 party of the bj'eda}-. On a morning hot and promising the}^ 

 poured in from ever}' side, till there Avas scarcely standing- 

 room on the village green — and didn't the}' " loose oft" " 

 doAvn the slope of Gartree Hill, Avlien the sight of a fox had 



* iliss Tatrot. 



