414 THE CREAM OF LEICESTERSHIRE. Season 



A ROUGH LINE. 



The Quorn have had their turn again : and in the week of 

 present chronicle have achieved success, distinct and pro- 

 longed, on each occasion of taking the field in their grass 

 country. The most perfect hunting weather has blessed 

 them — a bountj^ of course shared in common with other packs. 

 But the Quorn are in a vein of luck, as well as in the height 

 of form, this glorious open season of '81-82, Nothing suc- 

 ceeds like success ; and very few weeks of the present winter 

 have seen them without notable event to register. They have 

 been fortunate in their days, and fortunate, as a rule, in their 

 foxes ; and the result is the best season the}' have known for 

 years. 



Only a small party saw Lord Aylesford's covert drawn on 

 Friday afternoon, Jan. 13 — but this party was made of the 

 best and keenest material, and each man was mounted on a 

 horse that so far had only done second-horseman's work (in 

 itself, perhaps, a varying and uncertain quantity). Among the 

 little band, for instance, were the Master, Lord Manners, 

 Colonels. Forester and Gosling, Captains Boyce, Smith, and 

 Middleton, Messrs. Harter, Praed, Parker, Flower, Palmer, 

 Behrens, Martins, &c., &c, — and heartily they had to ride for 

 the first twenty minutes awaj' from Lord Aylesford's. An 

 unusual — not a perfect, but a very pleasant — line was run with 

 a bold strong fox. Turned at first from his original and ulti- 

 mate point, the Belvoir Vale or Curate's Gorse, he kept along 

 the upper ground to Thrussington Wolds— some fifteen 

 minutes of little fields, big fences, and a strong scent. A 

 rough style of agriculture would seem to prevail on this cold 

 upland. The hedges are chiefly tangled bullfinches, the 

 ditches are even in January mostly choked with yellow grass, 

 the plough is in many instances a wild waste of twitch, 

 while the grass is wet, sedgy, an:l undrained. Wide and 

 independent rode the first line — " a captain, a lord, and a com- 



