128 THE QUORN HUNT 



season opened on Monday, November 2, at Kirby Gate, 

 when the best things of the day were a fast twenty 

 minutes in the morning and a very quick fifteen minutes 

 in the afternoon. On the 4th November they had a 

 brilliant run, about which no details are forthcoming; but 

 one of the best runs of the season came off on Wed- 

 nesday, 17th February 1830, when nearly two hundred 

 horsemen met the Quorn at Six Hills, the time of meet- 

 ing being, for some reason or other, twelve o'clock. A 

 fox was found in Lord Aylesford's gorse, and hounds 

 settled down at once, but a too anxious field over- 

 rode them, and a check of ten minutes was the result. 

 Mountford, however, recovered the line, and thanks to a 

 good scent, the hounds ran at a great pace for the next 

 four miles, and as there were a good many ploughed 

 fields in the line, it was, as a chronicler observed, " better 

 adapted to killing the horses than the fox." Then the 

 fox kept to the grass, left Melton Mowbray about a mile 

 to the right, ran through Stapleford Park, the home 

 of the cantankerous Lord Harborough, and eventually 

 crossed the Whissendine. By the time the brook was 

 reached the hounds had been running for an hour and 

 fifty minutes, and although upwards of a hundred reached 

 its brink, no more than about thirty succeeded in getting 

 over. On went the hounds, until in about another three 

 miles the fox managed to get to ground in Ranksborough 

 Gorse, after a run of seventeen miles from where he was 

 found, the distance being covered in two hours and ten 

 minutes. About a dozen and a half of the morning's 

 field saw the finish, among them being Lord Southamp- 

 ton, Sir Harry Goodricke, Mr. White, Mr. Maxse, Mr. 

 Henry Thornton, and Dick Christian. On the following- 

 day another good run was brought off over a still better 

 country, the hounds finding a fox at Barkby Holt and 

 losing him at Garthorpe Hill — nine miles in fifty minutes ; 

 but the distance is, perhaps, a little flattered. 



