404 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. [Season 



pudding without Laving fairly earned it — and were not liaK as 

 good at tm-key as we should have been a week ago. The thaw 

 that set in on the night of the Feast was indeed a blessing — 

 not only in the cause of sj^ort, but of digestion. It is horrible 

 to think of what we might have come to, had idleness and high 

 living lasted much longer. Dinner is, to most healthy English- 

 men, by no means an insignificant part of life ; but an 

 Englishman must work his way to his dinner, if he is to do 

 justice to it and himself. 



So it was a happy change that set in on Sunday night ; and 

 it was with keenest pleasure, present and anticipatory, that we 

 set off to join the crowd at Queniboro' on Boxing Day — Monday, 

 Dec. 26th, and the hounds at the Quorn. The meet had thus 

 been fixed that Leicestershire might have its annual after- 

 Xmas revel, and that Barkby Holt might have the stin-ing-up 

 that accident had so long deferred. INIany INIelton men, fearing 

 the crowd, had abandoned theii' usual Monday routine ; and 

 gone into the Belvoir Vale for the day. But the riding 

 division was well represented, as for instance, by Lord Grey de 

 Wilton, INIr. Harter (who has brought his horses to Somerby, 

 and whose return to Leicestershire is a right welcome incident), 

 by Lord Manners, Captain Starkey, Mr. Cradock, &c., &c. 



With a barometer high and steady, and with the day still, 

 warm, and dull, there should have been a great scent with 

 which to drive the many foxes from Barkby Holt. But the 

 morning hunt, from Barkby to Scraptoft, and from Scraptoft 

 back to Barkby Holt, was very slow progress over a fine 

 country. It was enlivened only by homids hunting right up to 

 their fox in a small spinney at Scraptoft, and his jumping up 

 again before their noses. Had there been a scent, a pretty 

 finish might have been brought off — as in the afternoon. For, 

 curiously enough, the very same thing happened in the second 

 run (as we shall see directly) ; and led to a charming scamper, 

 with a clean Idll at the end. I can only account for this coin- 

 cidence and singularity of behaviour on the part of the foxes by 

 the supposition that neither of them had ever yet run before 



