62 HUNTING AND SPOBTING NOTES. 



onlj of the field beicg up to witness tlie termination; 

 but of tlie select few were Mr. Baker, the present, and 

 Mr. Eyton, the late master of these hounds, Mr. Webstar, 

 and Mr. Harnage. Although not up at the finish, Mr. 

 Llojd, of Aston, went remarkably well ; but all the horses 

 were completely beaten, and had it not been for some 

 friendly road which occasionally intervened, it appears 

 impossible that any could have gone half way." 



On Tuesday the South Cheshire had a good meet ; but 

 Borderer was bound for South Shropshire to have a peep 

 at very old friends in the Ludlow country. Onibuiy 

 Station lay h?indy and tempting, with an excellent mount 

 awaiting him. How could he resist ? An uninviting 

 morning — cold, misty, and cheerless — and yet there are 

 elements in the himting field which defy such drawbacks 

 as these, and we soon forget them. The hills to-day were 

 a mixture of fog and snow, with an unexhausted frost in 

 the ground, that made a move into a lower atmosphere 

 imperative. Cookeridge is a splendid covert, but it seldom 

 brings luck, and to-day there was little hope, because it 

 had been disturbed only last week. The decoy, too, seldom 

 fails, but here again the same excuse was forthcoming. A 

 fox had been on the move in the covert overhanging the 

 river in anticipation of a visit from the hounds, so that, 

 beyond hunting his stale line, no fun resulted here. 

 There was nothing for it but a peregrination to Ferney 

 Diri^-les, where the Master soon put us on the qui vive by 

 a view halloa on the Marlow top ground. Hounds did 

 not come verv quickly, but hunted prettily to the Kennel 

 Dingle, where the fox made a very queer double, and then 

 went back to Ferney ; and we buried ourselves in a dismal 

 fog as he again crossed the high ground into the Limekiln 

 Wood and Mocktree Hayes. Snow lay deep at the hedges, 

 and jumping was decidedly dangerous. A fresh fox was 

 viewed awav here, and we crossed the main road in good 

 style for Hargrove to Cophall, and so on slowly to Down- 

 ton Walks, where a dodging fox and a touchy scent 

 combined to bringing our hunting to an end. It was not 

 a day to see the Ludlow at their best, but nobody could be 

 displeased with the way the hounds did their work. So 

 much music and close hunting in the bitch pack I never 

 saw. The dogs are Wicksted's favourites, and always 



