256 HUNTING REMINISCENCES 



valley Gillard was laid low, Miss K. Hodgson hav- 

 ing the pleasure of giving the lead over. The point 

 this good fox evidently intended was Sproxton 

 Thorns, but being headed he turned back to Coston, 

 and up to Waltham it was but slow hunting. 

 Reynard had evidently rested, for scent suddenly 

 became breast-high as hounds skimmed away over 

 the turf towards Chadwell, and it was a stern chase 

 for the field up to Goadby Bullmore, where a sheep 

 dog joined in and spoilt the finish. Time, seventy- 

 five minutes, and it only wanted a kill to make it 

 first-class. 



A stop for frost of thirty-two days, beginning 

 December 24th, pretty well established a record 

 which no hunting man wishes to see beaten, but 

 when hounds started again on the 26th of January 

 they tapped a good vein of sport. A very large 

 crowd assembled at Croxton Park, and Newman's 

 Gorse supplied the first fox, who ran by Waltham 

 Thorns to Freeby with the two visiting masters of 

 the day, Lord Lonsdale and Mr. Fernie, in close 

 attendance. The inevitable pastoral scourge, the 

 sporting sheep-dog, caused complications near to 

 Freeby, all trace of the hunted one vanishing in the 

 churchyard, so that the whipper-in entered the 

 sacred edifice in search of the fox. The evening 

 gallop from Melton Spinney was a regular steeple- 

 chase across a stiff line of country to Bescaby Oaks, 

 with Lord Lonsdale, Lord Edward Manners, Mr. 

 V. Hemery, and Mr. J. Fullerton riding as if between 

 the flags. On reaching the covert, hounds turned 

 their attention to a badger, which they killed. 



