90 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [1882 



Lord Harrington, Messrs. G. Meynell, R. Bott, and Miss 

 Bott, W. and H. Boden, G. and A. West, D. Fox, T. S. 

 Keates, A. A. Flint, and Miss Flint, Jack Bond, and others, 

 about twenty in all. 



Of course there was no hunting that day, and those 

 who had come to the meet at Shugborough had to go 

 home again. 



Mr. Fox, who is mentioned here, has been quite one 

 of the leading men with the Meynell for some years. He 

 likes a horse that he knows, and when mounted on one 

 of that kind, like Mrs. Gibbs, he is undefeatable. She 

 was a queer-tempered one, inclined to have a will of her 

 own, but one of the best that ever crossed the Meynell 

 country. But though he does not often really sit down to 

 ride to hounds in the front rank on a horse he knows 

 nothing about, as his neighbour, Mr. Power, does, yet 

 there is no better schoolmaster on a green one, or finer 

 horseman. There is no line which he seems to enjoy 

 riding better than that from Snelston to Cubley. The first 

 year that Mr. Barnsley, who lives at Field House, March- 

 ington, was here, he got away from the Holly Wood, 

 Snelston, just behind Mr. Fox, and these two were nearest 

 the hounds, but the former complained that, do what he 

 would, he could never catch his leader. " Ah, he takes 

 a bit of catching," was the listener's comment, when he 

 had finished his tale ; and the remark was a true one. 



Mr. Redfern, in his " Antiquities of Uttoxeter," gives 

 the following interesting story about Mr. Fox's father : 

 " About this period there was a matter before the inhabi- 

 tants of Uttoxeter in which they were deeply interested. 

 Reference is made to the circumstances attending the 

 birth of William John Fox, Esq., which, with his majority 

 and marriage, have an historical importance in the 

 estimation of the local chronicler. These circumstances 

 were attendant upon a course of litigation which was 

 instituted about 1835, and continued through several 

 years, having issue to the question, who was the legal 

 inheritor of considerable landed estates, and other property 



