MELTON AND HOMESPUN 



THE HAUNTED HUNT 



The smoking-room of the Haycester and County Club 

 looked cheerful enough in the firelight which was slowly 

 getting the better of the dreary winter's day, and the 

 white-haired man lay back in his chair, and, stretching 

 out his slight, neatly-gaitered legs to the blaze, pulled 

 thoughtfully at his cigar. 



" As you all probably know," he said at length, " An- 

 thony Nunn took the hounds close on fifty years ago, 

 and hunted them himself for eleven seasons until his 

 death." 



He paused with a grim, short laugh. 



" ' Until,' did I say? Well, be that as it may, it is 

 thirty-nine years since Anthony Nunn met with his death, 

 and the Haycester lost the keenest huntsman that ever 

 cheered a hound. The man was born to hunt hounds, 

 he lived to hunt hounds, he died hunting hounds — and 

 then came that ghastly day which I can never recall 

 without a shudder. 



"He was too keen; he thought of nothing but the 

 hounds from year's end to year's end. In fact, whether 

 he was always so, or whether it grew upon him, there is 

 not a shadow of doubt that at the last he was a mono- 

 maniac on the subject of fox-hunting. 



