236 THE QUORN HUNT 



chopping- a fox in Sir Archibald Seymour's Gorse, which, 

 so far as can be made out, was planted to take the place 

 of Munday's Gorse, which had been grubbed up. 



The Ellar's Gorse fox went away over the wolds as fast as his 

 legs could carry him, and there being a burning scent, hounds 

 raced away at a pace which a few only of the field could maintain. 

 The fox presently went down into the vale, and was handsomely 

 rolled over after a run of an hour and seventeen minutes, the 

 distance being given as seventeen miles. 



Hunting" men of a former generation may have been 

 bold riders and very excellent sportsmen ; but many of 

 them were desperately bad timekeepers or judges of 

 distance. Fancy seventeen miles covered in seventy- 

 seven minutes — each mile in about four minutes and a 

 half! Just afterwards the hounds met at Wymeswold, 

 a fixture which always drew a large field, being almost 

 central between Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, and Mel- 

 ton, and on the occasion in question the officers of Lord 

 Cardigan's regiment mustered in force. The day was 

 remarkable, not only for the afternoon run, but for the 

 fact that Sir Richard Sutton, who was punctuality itself, 

 was fifteen minutes late. He, together with Lord Car- 

 digan, had been to his seat in Norfolk for shooting, and 

 had posted across country after some hard work on the 

 previous day. 



The fact that Willoughby Gorse was blank was less of a sur- 

 prise than a disappointment. The covert was situate on the 

 Wymeswold estate, and the shooting was in the hands of a 

 sporting baker who does not appear to have been even a good 

 o-ame-preserver, for his coverts were not half watched, with the 

 result that they were the happy hunting-grounds of poachers who, 

 while they made free with the game, and perhaps with the foxes, 

 at any rate so disturbed the latter that they were seldom in covert 

 when wanted. The Curate, however, provided a good fox; Kinoul- 

 ton and Hickling were soon left behind, and the racing pack ran 

 into the vale ; but daylight was waning, and it was about dusk 



