1880—81.] A LINK WITH THE PAST. 363 



spoilt it for the working staff, if not for us idlers, who, having 

 amused ourselves, went home pleased enough. The run had 

 been almost a double ring, had included both bad country and 

 good, but had been full of spirit and amusement. 



The verdict on the season 1880-81 has abeady been passed. 

 Not even three final weeks of uninterrupted sport would now 

 avail to redeem it. It has been, with us, a bad, broken season 

 — " the worst on record," say the veterans. Long and frequent 

 interruptions, continual want of scent, and wild uncomfortable 

 weather, have signalised it as the least j^leasurable winter of, 

 at all events, the decade. There are one or two among us 

 who have made the present season their first experience of 

 Leicestershire. Let us hope they will not frame their opinion 

 of the country from what they have now seen, or no doubt their 

 first experience will be also their last, and they will move else- 

 where, disappomted and incredulous. 



A LINK WITH THE PAST. 



A GALLOP from John o' Gaunt has come as a link with the 

 past. Time v:as when we looked upon it as our right by cus- 

 tom, expected it as belonging to the projoer order of things, 

 and felt aggrieved if it failed to come oft' quite once a month. 

 From John o' Gaunt to Burrough Hill, or the Punchbowl — 

 twenty to twenty-five minutes over the Twyford Vale. Could 

 anything beat it for country or delight ? Not so very long ago, 

 either — not a dozen years, even. And yet, when in memory 

 we sweep away the curtain of railway embankment, and throw 

 open that beautiful plain of broad pasturage once again, the 

 most prominent figures are not all to be found in om' present 

 hunting-field. Even Firr's horn had scarcely woke Leicester- 

 shire then. Looking back to that bright succession of merry 

 bursts, I can still see Mac Bride issuing bedraggled from the 

 Marfield Brook without cap or horn — the good grey (afterwards 

 ridden by poor Major "Whyte Melville in Gloucestershire — and 



