MR. GEORGE OSBALDESTON 113 



hit upon a fresh fox, and getting away on good terms with him 

 raced away by Saxelby and Grimstone. At Schoby Scholes the 

 hounds slipped all the field except Mr. Holyoake and Mr. Oxen- 

 don, who was on a visit to Dr. Leeke, of Nottinghamshire. These 

 two, it is true, had a bad start, but they were at any rate able 

 to see the way hounds went, though perhaps their view was a 

 distant one. Eventually the fox was lost in the " Six Hills 

 country," just in the nick of time as the report says, for every 

 horse which struggled on to the finish was completely done up. 

 It was, from all accounts, useless for any one to try to overtake 

 the pack, but even those who rode the lanes and byways could 

 not keep up with them, and at the end there was hardly a horse 

 which could trot. 



Only a few days afterwards, that is to say, on the 23rd of 

 November, another good run took place. After meeting at 

 Gaddesby, hounds went to Cream Gorse, whence a fox stole away, 

 and the hounds being on the outside of the covert at the time, 

 they soon hit off the line. The fox skirted Ashby Pasture to 

 Thorpe Trussells, and ran thence to Thorpe Satchville, after- 

 wards taking a direct line to Burrough Hill. At Adcock's Barn 

 the fox made a short turn to the left, almost in face of the 

 horsemen, and eventually the hounds ran into him, after a very 

 fast forty minutes, in the middle of a large field between Melton 

 and Kirby Park. All those who held good places up to Adcock's 

 Barn were thrown out at that point, and never saw hounds again 

 until long after they had killed their fox. 



The only man with the hounds all through was that fine 

 horseman Dick Burton, Mr. Osbaldeston's first whipper-in, and 

 for more than a mile he saw the fox in front of the hounds. 

 Close to the field in which he was pulled down, the fox crossed 

 a road close to Dick Burton, and then he lay down " coiled up 

 like a dog before the fire," as Dick said. Three couples of 

 hounds, which were two hundred yards ahead of the rest, ran 

 right over him; but the main body, less hasty, killed him. 



On the 26th November 1825 the Ouorn met at 

 Brawnston, near Leicester, and finding a second fox at 

 Glen Gorse, hounds ran him for some distance ; but just 

 as they were on the point of killing him, Mr. Osbal- 

 deston suddenly stopped the hounds owing to their 

 being overridden by oik- of the held, who must have 



H 



