1 68 Frank Beers Diaries. [1883-84 



to the right to Fawsley Laurels ; did not enter, but ran 

 away, Charwehon osier-bed to the left, over Sharman's 

 Hill to Prior's Marston, away over a most lovely country. 

 Hounds gradually ran from scent to view, and this gallant 

 fox yielded up his brush at Napton-on-the-Hill, after as 

 fine a hunting run, if not the finest, I ever saw ; nearly 

 three hours, and over a magnificent country. Many old 

 and young sportsmen who saw it said it was the finest 

 run ever seen by them. Fourteen miles as the crow flies, 

 but probably nearer twenty as hounds ran. 



''They touched upon, or crossed," said ' Nimrod ' in a 

 contemporary newspaper, " thirteen parishes, and after 

 running clean out of the hunt they traversed the tail- 

 end of the Pytchley and Bicester, and finished in the 

 best part of Warwickshire. A run extending into four 

 Hunts is a very rare occurence in the annals of fox- 

 hunting." 



This was the best long run I ever saw, our 

 noble Master had the head of this fox stuffed, 

 and gave it to me ; it hangs over me as I 

 write, as does also the brush of a fox killed by 

 Simpson in the Vale, which gave us the best fifty 

 minutes all over grass I ever rode to. Blacker 

 it could not be, or in better preservation. Both 

 these foxes were vixens and the same foxes with 

 which we started. J. M. K. E. 



" Feb. 22. — Bradden. Found in Tite's Coppice, ran 

 to Bradden Ponds to ground. Found in Plumpton 

 Wood ; away through Gomeral's Holt, past Colonel 

 Hutchinson's Covert and Allithorn, Helmdon on the left, 



