7 8 THE QUORN HUNT 



whom his own second horsemen act as pilots, should keep 

 to the roads and bridle paths. Lord Sefton had a light 

 groom in livery, and he and George Raven, John's 

 nephew, dressed as a whipper-in, rode his spare horses, 

 for he always had three out, not to points as is the 

 present fashion, but in his wake, and he changed from 

 one to the other as occasion required, which appears to 

 have been about every fifteen or twenty minutes, though 

 on one occasion one of his best horses, Loadstar, carried 

 his owner for an hour and five minutes. John Leech, it 

 may be remembered, made merry over the different styles 

 in which second horses were ridden in his time. 



In November 1802 it was stated that the Ouorn had 

 experienced little more than a succession of blank days, 

 there being but few foxes in the country. Some people 

 attributed the prevailing state of things to the severe 

 winter of 1 801-2 having killed so many gorse coverts, 

 while others accounted for it by acknowledging that "an 

 unfortunate misunderstanding" existed between the Hunt 

 and the farmers, who, following a course adopted in other 

 parts of England in consequence of the Game Acts, 

 decided to kill foxes. In spite of a contradiction of the 

 above statements, there appears to be no doubt that 

 foxes were few and far between, as when the season 

 1802-3 was near its close the Leicestershire men con- 

 fessed that they were disappointed with the season's 

 results. The turned-out foxes would not run, and they 

 were, wrote a critic, " but a bad substitute for those 

 oallant foxes which, when old Meynell managed the 

 hounds (whose courteous and conciliatory manners pre- 

 vailed on the farmers to preserve the game), showed such 

 straightforward runs and short bursts." Moreover, several 

 of those who had for some time hunted with the Quorn 

 now stopped away, in the hope of finding some more 

 favoured locality, among the absentees being Lord May- 

 nard, Lord C. Somerset, Sir H. Featherstonhaugh, and 



