262 THE QUORN HUNT 



he passed into the hands of Mr. Hunter of Thorpe 

 Arnolds. One day Mr. Gilmour did not like the brown 

 horse which had been sent on to Six Hills for his riding, 

 and seeing the grey, he asked to get on him, and, having 

 had a ride, liked him so much that he bought him for, it 

 is said, ^170; " the pair," as Dick Christian remarked, 

 " have never been out of flying things since I've known 

 'em." Dick was at that time rising eighty-one, and had 

 nothing to depend upon except the kindness of his 

 friends ; and the picture appears to have been brought 

 out in order that the old man might reap some advantage 

 from the sale thereof. 



The year 1 860 opened with a piece of good news for 

 Leicestershire fox-hunters. The antipathy to fox-hunt- 

 ing of the late Lord Harborough was well known, and 

 whenever hounds found themselves on the outskirts of 

 Stapleford Park, they had to be whipped off. Lord 

 Harborough's coverts were swarming with game, which 

 of late years he never shot himself, and his plantations 

 were defended by quite a ckevazcx de /rise of dog-spears, 

 which would have sufficed to destroy a whole pack, had 

 they entered the coverts. Soon after Lord Harborough's 

 death, Lady Harborough earned the gratitude of Leices- 

 tershire hunting men by abolishing the dog-spears and 

 throwing open Stapleford and its coverts to any hounds 

 which might run thither. 



Since November 1859 scent had been catchy, and 

 with the exception of a few short and sharp runs, not 

 very much sport had been enjoyed; but on the 27th 

 January i860 hounds ran for two hours and killed; while 

 a little later Mr. Bullen of Eastwell, a fine specimen of a 

 sporting parson, when riding in a foremost position in a 

 run from Six Hills, sustained a bad fall and broke his 

 collar-bone. 



The chief residents in and around Melton determined 

 at once to make social life as pleasurable as possible, and 



