DisaiJi)ointment at Battlefield. 29 



success, and it was, perhaps, some consolation to him to 

 know that his neighbours did no better, for G-rinshill, 

 Acton Reynald, and Shawbury shared the same fate. 

 There must be something wrong in the eai'th-stopping 

 department hereabouts, as I will not believe that this 

 district is foxless. 



On Saturday a large field turned up at Whitchurch, 

 only to be condemned to a day in the Fens ! Some hitch 

 had occurred about drawing Styche, of which it is difficult 

 to make out the rights. The owners of Styche are waiting 

 to shoot their coverts until the hounds have drawn them, 

 while those at Cloverley adjoining, are closed from an 

 opposite cause, the upshot being that we ran for three 

 fields to Fenn's Bank to ground. Then hunted a 

 miserable little cub in the mazes of the Fens for a few 

 minutes, killed, and went home thinking that the 

 Whitchurch days that we had been accustomed to enjoy 

 were very unlike this one. 



NINTH WEEK— December 22 to 27. 



Frozen-out foxhunters are certainly a degree better 

 than frozen-out gardeners. The former do not sing quite 

 such doleful ditties as the poor make-believe gardeners 

 do, and yet the sporting historian at Battlefield, on Box- 

 ing Day, would have to be blind or deaf to truth and 

 honesty were he not to record a tale of great disappoint- 

 ment. Nothing shows the bent of a people's mind more 

 than its way of employing a holiday. From schoolboy 

 days we know how we looked forward to a set holiday, 

 and decided how we should spend it, according to the 

 truest bent of our mind, and so it was with the Shrews- 

 bury people to-day. They trooped along to Battlefield in 

 their hundreds. The line of carriages reached for a mile 

 on the road, and horsemen might have been counted 

 at more than a hundred ; some had come from afar, and 

 all with the certain assurance that hunting would be the 

 business of the day. Eleven-thirty and twelve o'clock 

 came, and yet no Thatcher, no [hounds, no message, no 

 hope ! Every adjoining field was tried, and pronounced 

 excellent going. Still disappointment reigned supreme, 

 and the Boxing Day of 1884 had to be written down as a 



