54 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



i CHAPTER V. 



RADBURNE. 



What a long vista of delights, both past and future, does 

 not the very name open out for any follower of the 

 Meynell Hounds ? Radburne ! It is, indeed, a word to 

 conjure by. Are you not sure of a fox, and of, as a rule, 

 a good fox, and of a ride over the cream of Derbyshire ? 

 It seems, besides, to be as impregnated with the flavour 

 of fox-hunting, as Hoar Cross or Sudbury itself, for while 

 Lord Vernon, the Hunting Lord, was hunting his vast 

 ■country, the Squire of Radburne of that day, great-grand- 

 father of the present squire, with Wagstaffe for hunts- 

 man, had many a rare good chace after fox and hare on 

 all the Radburne side. The following, from the Sporting 

 Magazine, dated November, 1795, is a sample of the sport 

 he had — 



If you think the following remarkable account of a chace, which lately 

 occurred with Mr. Pole's hounds, near Derby, worthy of insertion, I am able to 

 vouch for its authenticity, having myself come from that neighbourhood : — At 

 eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the nineteenth of last month they threw off 

 at Eggington Heath, and, quicklj' having found a hare, they went off" in good 

 style ; and, being pressed very hard for a few rounds, the hare went off to Etwall, 

 from thence to Radburne, Bredsall, and Horseley (having crossed the Derwent 

 just above Bredsall), where she was headed back, and crossed the river a second 

 time, with the hounds and horsemen at her heels, pressing very hard. From the 

 river she ran for Mickleover, and from thence back to Egginton, where, after a 

 chace of twenty miles in the space of three hours, and almost without a check, 

 he was run into view and killed. 



Some remarkably bold leaps were taken during the chace ; one in particular 

 by Sir Henry Every, Bart., which was allowed by all present to be one of the 

 greatest they ever saw taken. Too much cannot be said of the excellence and 

 extreme good order of Mr. Pole's hounds ; they behaved, during the chace, with 



