26 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



been from lack of inclination more than from want of 

 determination, for a more determined-looking man never 

 lived. He had a trick of catching hold of the cantle 

 of his saddle when jumping a fence. His brother, the 

 admiral, a tall man, like his elder brother, and a remark- 

 ably handsome one to boot, was equally devoted to hunting. 

 He spent the winter at Hoar Cross, and the village people 

 say that, on his arrival, his first visit was to the coalyard, 

 and, if there were not seventy tons of coal in it, off he 

 would go again, exclaiming, "Do they want to freeze us 

 to death ? " 



The Leedhams were always an outspoken race, and 

 between old Tom the first and the squire there seemed to 

 be the sort of feeling which so often exists between the 

 faithful old family servant and the young master, whom 

 he has taught to ride and so on, and cannot help looking 

 upon as a boy. Thus, old men say that once, when the 

 squire went poking at a fence, till his horse stopped, old 

 Tom roared out that he would spoil every horse in the 

 stable. Next morning Mr. Meynell said, " You shall ride 

 this horse to-day, Tom ; " and the latter replied, " I'll ride 

 the devil." And ride him he did, waking him up with such 

 refreshers down the shoulder at the first few fences as 

 fairly astonished him, and he jumped as he had never 

 done before. 



There are so few alive now, who know aught of those 

 old days, that recourse must be had to what scanty 

 chronicles there are. The " Druid," in his rambles, tells us 

 how he unearthed old Tom AVingfield, somewhere between 

 Ashbourne and Kedleston, and how the veteran, still hale 

 and hearty at eighty-four, late in the fifties, told him how 

 " he quite remembered the Meynell family keeping harriers 

 and following them with poles." He had heard, too, of 

 the Bradley Wood fox, in the first Mr. Hugo Meynell's 

 time, and with this one he expressed the very deepest 

 sympathy. " It was his wont to break instantly at the end 

 of the wood, towards Ashburne, and they as regularly lost 

 him at the end of a mile. At last they discovered that he 



