^8 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD. 



little better fashion ; but, under the influence of sturdy 

 perseverance and a warming- sun, improved steadily till 

 quite a nice hunting run was evolved. 



The frost never quite left the ground ; and, while a fox 

 contented himself with running the hedgerows and the 

 northern slopes of Old Dalby and neighbourhood, hounds 

 could just work out his twisting career with a certain 

 amount of assistance. Moreover, he persisted in choosing 

 his way as much as possible over cold and " enterprise- 

 less " plough that seemed to laugh to scorn the zest and 

 ambition of a very ride-loving field. Thus, it was only 

 after he had travelled back by Saxelby Spinney, that he 

 was forced to shape his route over grass ; and then, by 

 easy stages, they hunted him to AVelb}^ Fishpond — forc- 

 ing him out towards Kettleby Village. To shorten a 

 long and uneventful story — a nice twenty mhiutes at 

 good hunting pace took them back some three or four 

 miles by Saxelby Spinney and Grimston Gorse to, and 

 beyond, the outskirts of Dalby Wood — after whicli they 

 hunted on for another mile or so through Lord Aylesford's 

 Covert, losing their fox at the end of about an hour and 

 forty minutes' hard and often uphill work. The run 

 back had to be ridden in a sunny mist, which made 

 hounds indistinguishable a field away — though their 

 music might have been heard a mile in the still frosty 

 air. Fences could not be judged at fifty yards distance ; 

 and men were apparently content to follow each other in 

 a string, the length and dilatoriness of which amply testi- 

 fied to the increasing strength of our daily parade. It 

 is no longer like October — when you might wait and 



