370 THE CREAM OF LEICESTEESHIRE. [Seasox 18S0— SI. 



gravel, burning to turn aside, but pent in among the debris, 

 plunging despairingly onwards, but finding no chance of extri- 

 cation. Hounds meantime were glancing forward at best 

 pace, close at their fox with a burning scent ; and the situation 

 rapidly became desperate. Mr. Mackeson alone (a visitor in a 

 strange land) had sufficient quickness of thought and action to 

 clamber over tlie heaps of sleepers immediately he found 

 himself on the right side of the river, and to brush over the 

 girding fence. Followed by Wells, the first whip, he rode 

 nearest in the line of hounds, though a flight of timber brought 

 him on to his hat, by the wnj'. However, the young soldier 

 had quite the best of it in this, his maiden essay among the 

 INIeltonians. Mr. Harter was the unhappy pioneer down the 

 line, and he and Lord Henry Vane Tempest, Captain Candy, 

 and Mrs. Sloane- Stanley (who, I ma}' be forgiven for saying, 

 has ridden brilliantly through man}^ of the best gallops of late 

 weeks) were the first to extricate themselves — some few others 

 nlso clearing themselves from the trap by a plunge over the 

 timber heaps and jagged fence alongside. A lady and a 

 collar-boned sportsman, with his arm in a sling, had alone been 

 posted on the other bank of the river ; and these trotted on to 

 keej) hounds in sight as long as they could. For the others, 

 it was ludicrous to note how every one was riding in the dark, 

 among the small enclosures and tall fences between Melton 

 and Burton, with the sun in their eyes and not a hound in 

 view. Those from the left rode their hardest across the line 

 of hounds to the right, and rice versa, the two sections crossing 

 •each other like a pair of scissors. Not till the Melton-and- 

 Oakham road did they really drop on the pack. In two fields 

 more the}' were in what is known as the Sandy Lane. Down 

 this they whisked for half a mile, turned into the fields again 

 towards Sanhani, and at the end of fifteen minutes five or six 

 men saw hounds roll their fox over in the open. It was a 

 queer, rough scramble ; but if pace is any merit, and big 

 fences any pleasure, then it had much to enhance it. 



