32 Ikinas of tbe 1buntin^*»iPielb 



on to the wildest feats, taking the most daring leaps, 

 beckoning him to follow, till he vowed there was no 

 woman in England to compare with her, and would 

 offer to back her for 500 guineas to ride against any 

 horsewoman in the world. With the Amazonian Phoebe, 

 Tom Moody and a few more such choice spirits in the 

 field, it will be gathered that sport with Squire Forester's 

 hounds was occasionally somewhat of the wildest. Mr 

 John Randall in his delightful recollections of ' Old Sports 

 and Sportsmen ' in Shropshire, to which I am consider- 

 ably indebted for anecdotes of the squire and Tom 

 Moody, gives the following graphic picture of a moon- 

 light run : — 



An old man, speaking of Mr Stubbs, for whom, he 

 remarked, the day was never too long, and who, at its 

 close, would sometimes urge his brother sportsmen to 

 draw for a fresh fox with the reminder that there was 

 a moon to kill by, said, ' One of the rummiest things my 

 father, who hunted with the squire, told me, was a run 

 by moonlight. I am not sure, but I think Mr Dansey, 

 Mr Childe and Mr Stubb:', if not Mr Meynell, were at 

 the Hall. Howsomever, there were three or four couples 

 of fresh hounds at the kennels, and it was proposed to 

 have an after-dinner run. They dined early, and, as 

 nigh as I can tell you, it was three o'clock when they 

 left the Hall after the Beggarlybrook fox. Mind, that 

 was a fox, that was — he was. He was a dark brown 

 one, and a cunning beggar too, that always got off at 

 the edge of a wood by running first along a wall, and 

 then leaping part of the way down an old coal-pit which 

 had run in at the sides. 



' Well, they placed three couples of hounds near to this 

 place, in readiness, and the hark-in having been given, 



