88 HUNTING AND SPORTING NOTES. 



how few bad ones. Besides, I am just old enough to re- 

 member perhaps the best hmiter sire in Shropshire dm-ing 

 the last fifty years — "The Yomig Steamer" — he was a 

 grey ! Ask Lord Combermere, our best judge, what he 

 thought of him, and what his feelings were when he was 

 allowed to go to Ireland in his later years ! No ! Grey, 

 as a colour, is really no barrier to success in a sire, no 

 more than it is a hunter ; and whether Linnaeus stopf* 

 here or not, I shall not reckon my patronage of him a 

 question of colour. 



Five o'clock tea is not a weakness of Borderer's, and 

 yet after Monday's performance at Baschurch the ladies 

 have made a dead set at him. " Oh, Mr. B. . . if we 

 had only known it was your habit to go home so early, 

 before the hounds had left off drawing for the day, oh, 

 of course we would have asked you, &c., &c." What is 

 the use of protestations when the only honest plea is one 

 of guilty? All the excuses about lame horses, disgust at 

 backward casts, and fatherly care for a daughter are as 

 chaff before the wind, when your delinquency is found 

 out. Of course they had a run after I left. " Sanford 

 Pool always holds a fox, and he went away over the most 

 unlikely line he could have done. Goodall did not get 

 away, and Mr. Herbert Wynn gave us a start down over 

 some deep ploughs to Knockin. We hardly knew where 

 we were going. Some farmer talked about America, and 

 I thought we were going to emigrate across the Severn. 

 There were knowing men shying at the water cresses and 

 bogs. There vv^as the poor neglected Potteries Eailway 

 to be crossed, and then to the left almost to the river 

 opposite Loton Park, where a train fever seized upon our 

 commanders, and this curious and unlikely run came to an 

 end, much to the relief of all but some half dozen who 

 knew their whereabouts, and could steer clear of nature's 

 obstacles in this seldom hunted vale, above which Severn 

 and Verniew mingle their waters." 



While thus disappointment had been the portion of the 

 majority of Sir Watkinites, the Shropshire, by the rule of 

 contraries were revelling in a fine bunting run. Ellerton 

 Hall was the meet, and the master, having sprained his 

 thigh, had to delegate his orders to Colonel Masefield. 

 The hounds were trotted straight to Mr. Burton Bu rough's, 

 covert — Deep Dale, which was blank ; but Ohetwynd 

 Heath produced a brace — a lame and barren vixen 



