74 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



had got his back up about something, and the foxes in his 

 coverts were doomed. It was some bother about a poultry 

 claim. There was to be a hunt with some harriers after 

 an outlying deer and a breakfast in his house preparatory 

 thereto, and Charles dropped a hint to the Master that he 

 would do well to go. This he did, and Mr. Jaggards 

 temporary resentment was not proof against the Squire's 

 winning manner, and foxes were found in their accustomed 

 haunts as before. Very likely the proposed destroyer was 

 glad enough of an excuse to remit the sentence, for he 

 dearly loved a hound. 



Wonderful sport they had in these years (which will 

 appear in due course later on) with the Meynell hounds, 

 but any one who has once carried the horn has a yearning 

 to handle it again, which no mere following of any hounds 

 can satisfy. And so it is not to be wondered at that the 

 Squire brought a pack from Limerick, bought from Mr. 

 Gubbins of Galtee More renown, to hunt those portions of 

 the Meynell territory which wanted it. A very good pack 

 they were too, full of drive, remarkably stout and hard 

 runners, with good noses and a rare cry. It was a great 

 loss to the country when he resigned the mastership of the 

 Meynell and went with these hounds to the Cattistock 

 country, where he enjoyed ten happy years, and brought 

 five hundred brace of those wild, strong foxes to hand. 

 In 1897 he was back again at Radburne, bringing his 

 dog pack with him, having sold the bitches to Lord 

 Digby. 



With these dog hounds he hunted the rough country 

 lying to the north of Duffield, and a little bit of the old 

 North Staffordshire district west of the Dove, drawing 

 Cotton Wood (of which Mr. Wade of Mickleover, a good 

 sportsman and staunch fox-preserver, had the shooting, 

 together with the other Crakemarsh coverts), Chipperlee, 

 Nott Hill, and the vast woodlands to the north-west of 

 Croxden Abbey. This was the best part of a country 

 which, roughly speaking, was bounded on the east by the 

 Derwent, on the south by the road from Duffield by 



