THE OLD YEAR OUT. Ill 



season. Its prolongation ^Yas strongly typical of " too 

 mucli of a good thing." Men rode on with tired horses 

 till they could do no more, and long after they could 

 gather much pleasure from a country that grew better 

 and stiffer at every mile. That the huntsman could 

 work on undaunted under the dispiriting knowledge of 

 repeated changes of fox was a credit to his courage, as it 

 was a proof of his reliance on the endurance of his 

 hounds. 



Widmerpool New Inn had been the meet — the thought 

 and sympathy of every Quornite being directed towards 

 Widmerpool Hall, where Major Robertson lay a sad 

 sufferer from the loss of an eye, destroyed by a thorn 

 during a recent day's hunting. 



Nottinghamshire (as was only right ; for the rendez- 

 vous is, I see, within the bounds of the better cultivated 

 county) was quite as strongly represented as Leicester- 

 shire ; and altogether there were quite as many people 

 " on the ride " when a fox left The Curate, as hounds 

 could fairly be called upon to compete with. The 

 Belvoir had been within a field of the covert the day 

 before (in a good five-and-forty minutes from Sherbooke's 

 Gorse) ; and it was great luck that a bold fox, now so 

 ready to fly, should not have then been frightened away. 

 Hounds started not on the best of terms ; but could run 

 well on the grass, were helped over one ploughed field, 

 and after a couple of miles had settled into full swing. 

 Widmerpool bad been left to tlie right ; Willoughby was 

 the apparent point ; we could go nearly as fast as the 

 pack, but hounds were not easily to be pressed. What 



