58 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD. 



lioiinds and liorsemen were all set going again, in fiilt 

 swing down tlie grass lands of the Twyford parish — 

 and this was the best of the burst. A goodly many — 

 23rominent among whom Mr. and ]\Irs. Cecil Chaplin, 

 Mr. Broclvlehurst, Mr. Pennington, Capt. Smith, Lord 

 ]\Ianners, M. Deschamps, Capt. Boyce, Capt. Ashton, 

 with the Master and others (not omitting a farmer, Mr. 

 Gilson, on a slashing young one), were helping to make 

 history repeat itself — rode fast in the track of hounds, as 

 the latter struck the Asliby and Twyford brook at the 

 only point at which it is fordable. Into the adjoining- 

 road some high, but easily broken, palisades offered a 

 better chance of keeping near tlio racing pack than a 

 tempting gate on the left. The next field had its ox-rail 

 well hidden on the farther side ; but an oxer down hill 

 is not necessarily very awesome — albeit the deep gallop- 

 ing was beginning to tell, and the rail went off like a big- 

 gun as the hero of a hundred fights came heavily on it. 

 There is no more curious feature in foxhunting than the 

 constant faculty evinced by the fox of taking his followers 

 a i)racticable line even over the most difficult country. 

 Again the chase struck a bridge — the only opening for a 

 mile, by which riders could possibly have crossed a 

 deep unjumpable bottom. And only two fields further, 

 hounds turned at right angles alongside — and so avoided 

 — a double oxer that no horse in Leicestershire could 

 have covered. 



Thus a merry half hour brought us to Ashby Pastures 

 — the strong covert of Thorpe Trussels having been left 

 just to the right. In a quarter of an hour more, luncheon 



