184 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



who had bought him to go in a dog-cart. The recol- 

 lections of the older Meynell men teem with anecdotes of 

 the feats performed by Lord Berkeley on these and other 

 hunters. Noteworthy amongst them was his great jump 

 over the Mease in flood on Quicksilver, a little mare, only 

 fifteen hands, one and a half inches, but an extraordinary 

 water jumper. The river was in flood at the time, and 

 most Meynell men know its ordinary width. When he 

 jumped it he was hunting with the Atherstone, and 

 Dickins, the huntsman, as bold a rider as any, did not 

 think it feasible, and shouted out to his lordship, " You 

 cannot get there," as he himself galloped off" for a bridge. 

 Tradition asserts that a Lord Lichfield jumped it at nearly 

 the same place many years before, and Sir William Fitz- 

 Herbert, too, had a crack at it. His horse got in, though 

 he landed dry himself. Henry Turnor used to tell a story 

 of how Tom Sebright, after " Squire " Osbaldeston, was 

 " outlawed," as he called it, or warned ofl", as we should 

 term it, jumped out of Bagot's Park over one of the great 

 gates. So he naturally went to measure the place where 

 Lord Berkeley, for whom he had a great admiration, 

 cleared the deer fence in Blithfield Park. It was not quite 

 equal to the park gates, but five feet six of solid timber is 

 high enough for most people. It was too high for any 

 one to follow the leader that time, and he had hounds all 

 to himself for at least twenty minutes. But it is im- 

 possible to give in detail all the feats he performed. 

 Every one who knows him can supply half a dozen. It 

 is curious, though, how one man sometimes gets credit for 

 what he has not done, while another gets none, do what 

 he will. For instance, in the great Sudbury run of 

 January 27th, 1873, an eye-witness told the writer that 

 he saw Mr. " Dick " FitzHerbert, and Mr. Walter Boden, 

 with a long lead of all the field, going across the meadows 

 by the Dove, the former well to the fore. It transpired 

 that Mr. FitzHerbert was not out at all that day, and that 

 it was Lord Berkeley who had the long lead. He was 

 riding Jabbawock, one of Mr. Arthur Bass's (now Lord 



