OXE WEEK S WORK. 133 



his Thursday's wool-gatlierlng. And yet even he cannot 

 be carried to hounds in a band-box. 



Given open and favourable weather, January must at 

 all times bo the best and steadiest huntincr month of the 

 year. All the foxes are then strong and capable ; and 

 horses and hounds have just attained thoroughness of 

 condition. A pack must run level now (temporary and 

 trifling ailments duly considered) if, as it should be, It is 

 built without a tail and topped of that most mischievous 

 of all incumbrances, a runaway head. Horses can now 

 do forty minutes without distress, where seventeen would 

 have settled them in November. And this year we ride 

 above ground and gallop and jump with the turf spring- 

 ing under us. Ah, 'tis a jolly season ! Sliall we look for 

 many like it? 



The Quorn and the Belvoir put their stamp on the 

 concluding days of the week ending January 12th — 

 carrying on the wave of sport, and proving once more 

 how a brilliant scent will come for a period rather tlian 

 for isolated days. Nothing could — to all appearance — 

 have been more unfavourable than Friday, with black 

 clouds being driven across the sky in a gale of wind, and 

 a storm of cold rain making us all miserable before noon. 

 The morning was horrible, the middle of the day detest- 

 able, and if we resisted example and a strong inner 

 prompting for home (when even from Thorpe Trussels 

 hounds were utterly helpless on an afternoon fox) — it was 

 only from fear of the dread epithet " chalk," or from some 

 former pitiful memory of a run achieved after we had 

 " turned home to tea." But the huntsman laboured on, 



