156 THE BEST SEASON OX RECORD. 



■sympatliy flo\Ys still more readily in the time of need and 

 helplessness.* 



Wild and stormy as were the two final days of last 

 week (January 25 and 2G), Hearsay avers stoutly and 

 circumstantially that they were replete with sport. The 

 morning of Friday certainly seemed to settle into 

 temporary and comparative calm ; the Quorn met at 

 Asliby Folville ; and it called for no great stretch of 

 fancy to credit Ashhy Pastures with another fox, or 

 Fortune's favourite pack with another goodly run. No 

 matter what visions may have visited a bedside, or what 

 yearnings have made the heart sick — the following is 

 what happened out of doors. The meagre sport of the 

 forenoon (wherein Tom Firr was the animal most closely 

 and generally hunted) served its purpose in reducing the 

 field to a moiety of its grosser self; and Ashby Pastures 

 became the sheet-anchor of the afternoon, to a sterling 

 and well-horsed company. These had their mettle first 

 tested by a hot and cheery ring of some ten minutes 

 over the Ashb}" grass — regaining the Pastures with their 

 fox already half-burst. The field then kept to the Great 

 Dalby road — while hounds threaded the wood on their 

 left hand, to emerge at the lower end and close at their 

 fox. Rising the next hill, they left Sanham considerably 

 to the right ; and though plough lay in the way almost 

 till Eye Kettleby Lodge, the pack never faltered for a 

 moment. Successfully overcoming (/. e. the hounds) or 



* It vill be understood that an accident in the field had rendered the 

 author a temporary cripple, and dej^endent altogether upon kindly iriends 

 for knowledge ol' passing events. 



