Skatiny at Oteley. — Loirpington. 57 



FIFTEENTH WEEK, Febeuaey 1st to the 6th. 



When the history of the season of 1885-86 comes to be 

 written it ^Yill be a tale of many bitter disappointments, 

 more perhaps than any of its predecessors since 1854. 

 Not a week has passed since the opening of the year 

 without some postponed meets or dangerous attempts to 

 combat the difficulties of the weather by hunting in some 

 form. This has entailed much grief ; its latest victim is 

 poor Eli Skinner, than whom a more excellent whip 

 never followed a pack, and it was a cruel fate that his 

 horse should roll over on him in the snow on the side 

 long ground about Wirsall on Sir Watkin's Hinton 

 Wednesday. By the bye the Cloverley fox that gave 

 them such^an excellent run was, I find, killed at Shaving- 

 ton, not Cloverley as I stated, so that he more than 

 completed his big ring before succumbing to the 

 exigences of the occasion. I am told that the hounds 

 fairly out-ran the horsemen over the flying country 

 between Kent's Eough, Ash, and Cloverley— a thing 

 rarely seen here, where such a never-to-be denied field 

 had no excuse to offer for not being at least within a 

 field of those flying sterns. 



On Saturday, Sir Watkin hunted under difficulties at 

 Oteley, the going being so bad that a friend of mine, who 

 travelled there by rail, deemed discretion the better part 

 of valour, and returned without his fun, so I have not 

 been able to catch anything of their doings, and am 

 obliged to say the same of the Halston Monday. Had 

 there been any good sport, however, I think I should 

 have heard of it. 



It is a subject of universal regret in North Shropshire 

 that Lady Frances Lloyd, the wife of Colonel E. Lloyd, 

 of Aston, should have" been so suddenly taken away, 

 leaving a large family of ten children to mourn her loss. 

 In every walk of life, no old Shropshire family is more 

 respected than the Lloyds of Aston ; and none are more 

 devoted to the hunting field. 



The Shropshire met at Loppington on I\Ionday, on the- 

 boundary of their country between Wem and Ellesmere. 

 This is always looked upon as an uncertain find, and 

 the second draw at Brouditou Gorse is often the 



