THE GEEAT RUN FROM POOL FIELDS. 107 



view, and run into liini in the open, witli only a few left, 

 and those struggling hard to be there ; many a time have 

 we stood in the charmed circle around the baying pack, 

 while Jack Boore performed the last oljseqiiies of the chase, 

 and said one to another, as we turned our hard breathed 

 horses to the wind, " This is the best day we have had for 

 years." Many a first rate run have we had since then, with 

 Lord Willoughby still acting as huntsman, but no great 

 run in my opinion has ever come up to this one for country, 

 time, distance, and finish. I have read Colonel Anstruther 

 Thompson's account of three great runs, and I marvel 

 somewhat that he failed to include this one in his volume. 

 I think if he had heard all about it he would not have 

 failed to have done so. It has struck me therefore that I 

 may be doing some benefit to "The Annals of the Warwick- 

 shire Hunt," and perhaps cheering some future young 

 sportsmen to a deeper love both of their comitry and their 

 hounds, and the gallant sport of foxhunting, if I aid in 

 recording one of the chief of past glories of the Warwick- 

 shire hounds. I am fully conscious that I am perhaps 

 one who is not quite fitted for the task I have undertaken, 

 for, starting as I did that day under peculiar advantages, I 

 failed to be one of the gallant few, who, sti'uggling on to 

 the end, "undaunted, unwearied, untiring still," saw their 

 fox pulled down at Hodnell. I have no credit to claim 

 to myself, rather the contrary; for, riding as I was a 

 thoroughbred horse in the top of condition — a horse, too, 

 that had not left his stable till nearly two o'clock — with a 

 little more determination, a little more cunning, or a little 

 more experience, I might also have been there. Still, I 

 will tell what I can, as 1 consider that a run is always best 

 told when you give your own description and your own 

 experience of it. Of one thing I am certain, that if anyone 

 should live and hunt to the end of the natural limit of 

 man's existence, he may see a day equal to this, but he 

 will never be able to say that he has seen one to surpass it. 

 Let me take the country to begin with — Leicestershire 

 without the hills ! The run was nearly all in the bonny 



