3 i8 THE QUORN HUNT 



Leaving the flags for the field, a chronicler of former 

 years wrote : — 



To swim the Wreake, where it is no more than twenty or 

 thirty feet wide, at the end of a fine run, was sufficient to give 

 Lords Brudenell and Gardner a place in the hunting history of 

 Leicestershire, which will never be forgotten. In fact, crossing 

 a river is so seldom attempted that, with the exception of the 

 instance just mentioned, and the occasion when Lord Grey de 

 Wilton and Captain Williams swam the Wreake near Asfordby, 

 in the days of John Treadwell, who contented himself with 

 keeping to dry land, and seeing how they did it, I cannot call 

 to mind an instance of crossing deep water. However, some 

 days since, when the Quorn met at Lockington, the hounds went 

 away with their fox from Bottoms Gorse, and ran across the 

 meadows to the Soar, which, always very wide, was swollen 

 with recent rains into such a state of flood that many ideas will 

 present themselves before that of plunging into it. The hounds, 

 however, pressed their fox closely, and with no chance of turning 

 he was obliged to take to the water, followed by the pack, who, 

 to the astonishment of all, were quickly followed by the young 

 Lord Panmure, who plunged boldly in, with a strong stream and 

 a good long straight swim before him. Few thought that he would 

 survive it, but he did, and landed in safety on the other side, 

 after which, as the remainder of the field had to work two miles 

 round to a bridge, he had the hounds all to himself, having 

 fully deserved the honour, by the almost unexampled pluck he 

 displayed. 



Another paper, however, disputes the identity of the 

 swimmer, and says that it was the Hon. William E. C. 

 Stanhope, son of the Earl of Harrington, who crossed 

 the river. Anyhow, history repeats itself, for in Captain 

 Pennell-Elmhirst's "Cream of Leicestershire" there is 

 an account of how, in 1871, the Quorn hounds met at 

 Cossington, and after an hour's run came down to the 

 banks of the Wreake, near Thrussington Mill. A great 

 deal of rain had fallen, and the river was as yellow as 

 the Tiber is supposed to be. Captain Elmhirst says 

 that a rider in black plunged into the river, off a perpen- 



