354 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



world the catastrophe came exactly where a joming lane threw 

 a corner of muddy turf almost into the middle of the road, to 

 receive the hapless lady with no further hurt than the terrible 

 fright. But this was not all. Simultaneously with the crash 

 of the runaway horse and cart, two other horses came tearing 

 down, as onl}' madly-fnghtened horses can. The one carried 

 nothing but saddle and flappmg stirrup-leathers; its rider 

 gone, but a shaft-mark in its quarter, from which blood spurted 

 at each stride like water to the stroke of a pump. The other 

 bore its rider wildly down the steep incline, to dash him in a 

 heap against the first cottage wall. Yet the only fatal casualty 

 was the shaft-pierced steed, though the combination of accident 

 was horrible, and such as, happily, seldom attends the hunting- 

 field. Nerves had scarcel}'^ recovered, though, before Captain 

 Hunt scrambled up from a broken-backed horse. Altogether, 

 it was a bad day for the timid. 



But, to turn from what was fearful, let us go to what was 

 bright and amusing — the few minutes from Waterloo Gorse, 

 when at last their fox could be forced from a bad- scenting 

 covert, and a smart, driving pack of hounds were away to their 

 own sparkling music. From Waterloo Gorse to Farndon is 

 but a short distance, easily gone by road, but very stirring by 

 way of the fields alongside. The fences are as big as the 

 county of grazing Northamptonshire owns. But the burst was 

 too brief to dwell upon, far too brief to satisfy. Then the 

 order came for Althorpe Thorns, and a field of fom- hundred 

 followed like lambs to a narrow turf bridge below the covert. 

 The bridge not unnaturally succumbed, and three-fourths of 

 the following never even had the satisfaction of seeing the 

 covert drawn. Hounds went gaily away from it at once, and 

 over a wide hilly country ran hard for the next twenty minutes 

 to Sibbertoft and the Hothorpe Hills. Dipping from these 

 again they slipped quickly across the valley to Bosworth Hall, 

 to hunt prettily back to the line of hills and on to Sulby, 

 where they killed, almost immediately after starting their fox 

 forward from the gorse. What more you saw depended on your 



