SPORT IN SEASON. 99 



Thursday, Dec. 20th, at Illstoii Grange, was a quiet 

 muggy morning — which might mean a scent, but might 

 not and did not. The beautiful Norton and Billesdon 

 country never shone out more enticingly than now. The 

 big assemblage included men from Market Harboro', 

 Melton, and all the district between ; but Fate did 

 nothing for them. A cowardly fox got back to Norton 

 Gorse and to ground as quick as he could — while three 

 grim fences brought some thirteen good men also to 

 ground. Shankton Holt had by accident stood over for 

 six weeks— and four brace of foxes were ready to run. 

 But scent was nil^ either here or from Sheepshorns. 

 Yet, to instance the perversity of scent and fortune — the 

 Meynell showed the run of the season to two or three 

 Meltonians who took train that day to join them. 



Friday, Dec. 21st, was only relieved from poverty by a 

 sharp brief scurry in the evening — scarcely enough to 

 reward, certainly not enough to satisfy the appetites of, 

 the many who had come from a distance. It would seem, 

 by the way — not to judge from this particular day, but 

 from every day of this delightful open winter when 

 hounds have met in any fair sample of the country round 

 — that not only do more men hunt, but that they travel 

 farther and more readily to do it, than ever before. The 

 explanation of the fact — if I am right in assuming it to 

 be a fact — lies no doubt in the multiplicity of railways, 

 and the new facilities so readily advanced by competing 

 companies. During this Christmas holiday time, indeed, 

 our fields are made up quite as largely of strangers from 

 afar as of members of the home or neighbouring Hunts— 



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