Hiiilon — An Afternoon froiii AsJi. 25 



which virtually ended here, as Thatcher failed to hit him off, 

 towards Preston Springs. Those with second horses went 

 on to Wytheford, and Morgan's Pool, and saw them drawn 

 blank — then Ellerdine produced a bad fox that did not 

 add to the evening's enjoyment. Can nothing be done 

 to improve that horrible bridge ? 



Saturday, the 19th, all the sporting world of North 

 Shropshire and South Cheshire went to Hinton, Avhere 

 Mr. Peele Ethelstone always provides a welcome and foxes 

 without end. Whitchurch, too, turns out to see the fun, 

 and it would take a keener east wind than blew to-day to 

 have ke[)t the eager throng at home. 



Of course hounds were soon at work, and ran down 

 towards Quoisly, then back to the eternal Peele's Gorse, 

 which as usual kept the field in shivers and impatience for 

 fully an hour, when for the twentieth time the hounds had 

 to be called off, and a stay-at-home Reynard triumphed. 

 I long to know what the secret of foxes' dodges is in this 

 little Erebus. Ossmere produced a brace, one of which 

 was caught in covert, and the other went away to Comber- 

 mere as usual, and was run out on the Marbury side and 

 lost. Ash Gorsrf is generally the honne-bouchc of 

 the day. It was two-thirty p.m ere it was reached to-day. 

 Not avv'himper disturbed its recesses for another ten 

 minutes, and then away he goes to the bottom. The 

 throng at the gate is let loose, and those wide rushy 

 pastures are once again the scene of a superb gallop. 

 Taking the centre of the vale, eastward — it is not for 

 Oloverley that he flies to-day, nor for Combermere — fence 

 succeeds fence, and hounds still fly over those lovely three 

 miles ere Shavington great red wall confronts you. The 

 wags declare he is a Tory fox, for he shies at the wall 

 instead of seeking the sanctuary within it. Sharp to the 

 left, parallel with it. bang comes a brook to be jumped or 

 tuml)led into — a few preferred the latter process, : or 

 rather their horses refused to do their best, iurley Dam 

 is left on the left. Kent's Rough is whisked through 

 cleverly, Adderley is entered, and the house and park 

 passed through ere this capital fox manages to save his 

 brush in one of Squire Corbet's hospitalde earths. The 

 Squire is there himself to join in the fun, and is brought 

 home in the style he loves best, smiling: to think that his 



