SEASON 1875-76 75 



less than 20 miles as the crow flies. " It was a 

 pity we had not more daylight to have enabled us 

 to kill our fox," Gillard remarks against the day, 

 " for it looked fifty to one on our doing so had we 

 not been compelled to whip off in the big woods, 

 and I never saw hounds so glued to a scent or so 

 determined not to be stopped. Mr. John Hardy, 

 the Rev. W. C. Newcome, and Major W. Long- 

 staffe acted as my whippers-in, helping me to 

 get hounds back to Grantham, where the van 

 was awaiting us." No day was too long for the 

 veteran Mr. "Banker" Hardy, who was one of 

 the mainstays of the hunt ; he kept a stud of good 

 hunters at Grantham, rode them hard, and enjoyed 

 the sport thoroughly. His great friend was the 

 Rev. "Billy" Newcome, and the two were very 

 often the last to bid the huntsmen good-night, for 

 they never thought of going home until hounds 

 did. Mr. Newcome was a well-known figure with 

 the Belvoir hounds for half a century, being all 

 that time Rector of Boothby. After hounds he 

 was a fearless rider, possessed of iron nerves, 

 though not a finished horseman ; he frequently 

 went pounding along with a slack rein, and at 

 different periods of his career came in for 

 some serious crumplers. A contemporary of Sir 

 Thomas Whichcote at Eton, he was born the 

 same year, 1813, and passed away in the winter of 

 1896. 



A run down into the fen country when it rides 

 deep is always a stiff day's work, and on December 

 28th, after meeting at Rauceby Hall, a great gallop 



