360 1 888. 



many farmers, and a few visitors, but at the 

 same time it looked a Leicestershire sort of 

 gathering. There was quite a crowd of very 

 well-mounted gentlemen as the road in the 

 coppice was pushed through on the signal that 

 Reynard had gone away, and a bird's-eye view 

 of the start showed the hard-riding division 

 getting clear in a body, and others taking to a 

 line of white gates, after the fashion of the 

 Midlands. I was there on a visit of enquiry, 

 and subsequently heard from poor old Jack 

 Press who this and that person was. And how 

 many have gone over to the majority in these 

 few years — Jack Press amongst them, and the 

 amiable baronet with whom I chatted the whole 

 of one evening in the coffee-room of the Digby, 

 besides the dashing young officer, who, I was 

 told, rode straighter than any one, and who 

 met his doom in a polo match in India. Well 

 do I remember trotting on to covert with a 

 gentleman in black, who expressed himself 

 extremely well pleased with things as they 

 were at that moment, as a run, he said, was a 

 certaint}^ every day with these Vale Hounds. 



