264 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [1868 



and end of the run, a considerable distance should be allowed 

 more than could be given by straight lines from point 

 to point. By marking the line on the ordnance map, and 

 measuring it off, I make the first ring just outside nine 

 miles ; add twenty-seven and a half miles for the rest, and 

 we get a total of thirty-six and a half miles. We can get 

 an approximately near estimate also by the time test. 

 The wind was north-west, and as the hill was nearly ten 

 miles north of the find, the hounds had a fair chance, 

 and ran fast up-wind, and always at a good pace. Nine 

 miles an hour in a stiffly enclosed country is a good pace ; 

 and, reckoning the run at this rate, we should probably 

 not be far out in our reckoning, if we took the mean of 

 the two results, which would give thirty-six miles as the 

 distance run. 



" I rode hard for the first ring up to Kedleston Park, 

 after which, foreseeing a hill run, I was satisfied to keep 

 within sight and hearing of hounds. This I succeeded in 

 doing, while taking advantage of parallel roads and 

 cutting off corners, for the hounds do not run as straight 

 as the lines on a map, and one can sometimes gain a bit 

 by riding round instead of over a hill. You must not 

 think from this that I rode cunning in the sense of 

 shirking the run. I was always there, and, in the early 

 part of the run, it was necessary to ride hard to get clear 

 of the field, which was large, about three hundred horse- 

 men, many from Muster's and Tailby's countries. I rode 

 Rosy Morn twelve miles to covert, she carried me through 

 the whole run and returned the same day to Somersal, 

 fourteen miles from the hill (over twelve miles as the crow 

 flies), only stopping at Yeldersley on the way home for 

 twenty minutes to have some gruel and a feed of corn. 

 She was so little distressed, that the next week she was 

 hunting again. She is a brown mare, sixteen hands high, 

 thirteen years old, by Chanticleer, dam by Prizefighter, so 

 that she combines the Birdcatcher and Gladiator strains. 

 ' Blood will tell ; ' my weight at the time was about nine 

 stone ten pounds. My nephew, Billy, son of Sir William 



