190 THE BEST SEASON ON RECORD. 



intermingled with, and cut off by, tlie liorsemen, but the 

 head of the pack chasing their fox hotly into Wymond- 

 ham Eoughs. With flagging horses men were glad 

 enough to make use of gates and ford, and gallop round 

 to the Stapleford crossing. No, he was not over the 

 railway — declared gatekeepers and platelayers ; and half 

 the hounds were already through the covert, their heads 

 up in puzzled inquiry. Tallylio ! ! Talbjlio ! came 

 Gillard's joyful scream, as he spied his game prone in a 

 hedgerow, twixt us and the covert. Tallylio ! and in 

 another moment the big dogs had rent and torn him into 

 many a fragment in mid-field. Thirty minutes without 

 a check ! — twenty-seven say some. But the margin was 

 too narrow to nurse dispute, and the fun too good to 

 admit of cavil. Another Asli Wednesday is scored to 

 the Belvoir ; another Ash Wednesday we owe to our 

 Duke. 



