1881—82.] LIFE AND DEATH. 425 



five of the giants of that day fell in a row at a single oxer. To- 

 day the same fence was a low plain stake-and-hound with which 

 fifty people toyed easily ! Tempora mutaniur — and 'tis just as 

 well that such fences, as well as we, should do so too. 



Twent3'-six minutes let us know how warm and close was 

 this afternoon ; for at Hoby Rectory we felt as in a vapour 

 bath. Here it seemed as though our fox had availed himself of 

 an earth that has long existed in the rectory garden ; but in a few 

 moments he was holloaed on and twice headed ; and then, 

 when quite beat, liis life was saved under the confusion of 

 information. He is best alive : for a bold fox that knows such 

 a line of country can ill be spared. 



LIFE AND DEATH. 



March IItii, 1882. 



What is sad in my chapter must be at its end. To com- 

 mence in sorrow would be to cast a cloud over a story that is 

 nothing if it has no gladness — and whose subject was ever the • 

 brightest jo}'- of the long life that lias passed. 



A Gallop with the Quorn. This is all I have to tell. But 

 an instance is better than a catalogue — a sketch than a mere 

 list of pictures at a distance — an hour's run than a week, a 

 year, of routine existence. 



The Quorn have had many a good burst, many a hearty run, 

 in the happy season that is now so nearl3^ over. But not since 

 November a gallop to compare witli this — not through the 

 winter, I think, a better. That autumn treat of thirty-five 

 minutes from Parson's Gorse to Hose Village was of a similar 

 class ; and there were two October runs — the one from Lord 

 Moreton's, to Baggrave and beyond, the other from Gad- 

 desby Spinney to Burrough-on-the-Hill — that for continued 

 pace and delightful country would bear comparison. The 

 great Widmerpool disaster of January we may wipe out in 



