108 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD. 



minutes and hunted liim to ground in about forty-five. 

 Twice in tlie day it happened that a fox, just entering 

 upon the beautiful Hoby Vale, preferred to turn in to a 

 drain rather than trust his strength over those wide fair 

 fields. But this by the way — and, I should have added, 

 from Cossington Gorse and Thrussington Wolds in turn. 

 The run was from Thrussington Gorse — hounds quietly 

 slipping away on a fox that left unseen. He crossed the 

 Fosse Road between the covert and Six Hills — and they 

 were across it too, long before any Christmas crowd 

 could cut them olf. A dozen men turned out of the road 

 (always the most difficult, yet often the most desperately 

 necessary point in riding to hounds) ; but they had 

 scurried almost out of sight before anyone had reached 

 the second road, by Mr. Cradock's Spinney. Round this 

 they swept hke a whirlwind, pointing as it were for Ellar's 

 Gorse — Downs in closest pursuit, with Messrs. G. 

 Lambton, Pennington, Beaumont, and the huntsman 

 apparently the only others who could live the pace. 

 And indeed it was a fair trial of speed, as for those early 

 minutes they competed over firm young turf (for many 

 hundreds of acres on this side of the Quorn country have 

 been redeemed to grass in the last few years), with low 

 level fences tliat could be taken anywhere and in the 

 gallo}). A dozen minutes they flew towards Burton — 

 and now their fox was plainly to be seen, toiling onward 

 a small half-field in front. Dodging a hedgerow, he 

 flung them off' for a moment ; and, when some twenty 

 minutes in all had passed, he had joined another of his 

 kind — the two crossing a fallow together. An instan- 



