gS " I CHOOSE TO CALL IT ACONITE." 



I recall a frosty morning in the Glenn region during Sir Bache 

 Cunard's reign, when we hunted, though it was perilous to do so. 

 A lot of us were craning and funking a nasty style with a footboard 

 that barred the way to the pack. Suddenly Mr. Tailby, the veteran 

 of the party even in those days, pushed his way to the front with — 

 "Here, let me make a w^ay " — but he didn't ; for though his horse 

 slipped on the hard greasy turf and rapped the top rail hard fore 

 and aft, it never broke, and the horse did not fall. 



Rightly or wrongly, Mr. Tailby was not credited with the best 

 of memories for hounds' names when he hunted them. The story is 

 told that he once rated one named Aconite, whereupon a somewhat 

 zealous official informed him that it was not Aconite but Affable. 

 All the answer Mr. Tailby returned was — " I choose to call it 

 Aconite." 



Mr. Tailby did not often find himself pounded, but it was once 

 his fate at the Stonton Brook, as I heard him relate one night at 

 his own dinner table to the late Mr. Sam Reynell, a very famous 

 Master of the Meath Hounds. The brook was in flood, and the 

 late Lord Tredegar, then Godfrey Morgan, got first run at the only 

 practicable spot. Horse and rider became engulfed, and blocked 

 the way for Mr. Tailby, Jack Goddard and the rest of them, and 

 when hounds were next seen they had killed and eaten their fox. 



On Tuesday, November 9th, 1886, Mr. Tailby, on the way to 

 meet the Cottesmore hounds at Cole's Lodge, galloped by the 

 w^riter and, dispensing with the conventional form of greeting, 

 called out just this — " Watch hounds to-day : we shall have a great 

 run." It was a most remarkable prophecy, and before three hours 

 had passed was conspicuously fulfilled. Half-a-gale was blowing 

 when hounds were thrown into Launde Park Wood, and only about 

 a score of people got away on terms with them to Launde Great 

 Wood. Even then there had been time for a slipped crowd to 

 right matters, but, fortunately for the few, 14 couples turned short 

 back from the Robin o' Tiptoe end of the Great Wood with a fresh 

 fox, and their rousing cry allayed the earlier fears. Meanwhile, 

 8 couples had slipped out for Woodborough, and though Will Neal 

 was all for stopping them, he had to yield to the persistent cries of 

 Go on ! Go on, Neal ! The sequel was a grand hunt, embracing a 

 13-mile point, to Asfordby, three miles the other side of Melton, 

 where the fox was killed in the Wreake, and sank, a labourer being 

 " commandeered " to strip himself, and fork its tattered remains from 



