^8 HUNTING AND SPOBTING NOTES. 



EIGHTH WEEK— December 15 to 20. 



My budg-et is condensed into one run. Stapleton 

 Village, on Wednesday, welcomed the Slircpsliire, but all 

 the coverts tliereabonts, iaclnding Netley and Lytli Hill, 

 failed to produce a fox. Bomere was a last resort. It 

 had not held a fox this season, and many a Lng sigh was 

 heard as each likely side was drawn, and still no sign of 

 a fox. Thatcher had. raised his horn, and was actually 

 beginning to blow a final blast, proclaiming the day a 

 blank one, when our old led-coated runner, in a short cut 

 for home, stumbled upon a fox curled up in a bush. 

 " Taliy-ho ! " shouted he, with his best lungs, and back 

 rushed llie pack. For a moment he was in the middle of 

 them — in the next he was away for Betton, and the 

 hounds in the same field with him. With such a start, 

 how could there fail to be high pressure on all sides? 

 Skirting the coppice, he turned short to the right, 

 parallel with the Wenlock road, and crossed the Con- 

 dover Brook, close to the iron bridge. Then over a sticky 

 line to Cantlop^ and leaving the Pitchford coverts on his 

 left, it was a rare treat to see hounds racing away, and 

 a select few doing their level lest to be with them. 

 Falls had already thinned them, but a soldier, and one 

 hailing Wroxeter way, were cutting out the work, and the 

 latter did the Pitchford brook gallantly. The line was 

 now near the Brick Kiln, and, leaving Frodesley village 

 on the left, took a straight course to Lawley, where the 

 shades of evening were closing so fast that Thatcher 

 began to blow his horn. Not yet, however, to be denied, 

 on went the flving pack right over the Caradoc, and 

 were with difficulty stopped literally in the dark — 52 

 minutes without check. An eight-mile point, and hounds 

 22 miles from their kennels, which they did not reach till 

 10-20 p.m., speaks for itself of the goodness of this wild 

 fox that Bomere had afforded us. There was a vast 

 amount of grief. One who does not usually tumble, being 

 down twice ; both the whips had falls, and at least half 

 a dozen others have similar cause to remember the day. 

 One good wild fox like this is w^orth half a hundred bad 

 ones. 



Friday brought nothing but disaj^pointment. Hard- 

 wicke Grange is so central that a large £eld turned up, 

 and everybody knows how keen Mr. Bibby is in the good 

 cause. Still, sometimes it is not for mortals to command 



