122 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [1884 



dit Mr. Fort refused five hundred pounds for liim. This 

 was some years ago, and the horse was carrying Stephen 

 magnificently at the beginning of last season. He could 

 jump the Sutton brook as easily as common horses clear a 

 water-furrow, and no timber was too high for him. 



No lady ever had a better horse than Mercury by 

 Jupiter, who has carried Mrs. Holland for eleven seasons, 

 I believe, without a fall. And to have done this with her 

 is no small feather in any horse's cap, for where the 

 hounds go she goes. It is a treat to see this pair in a 

 good run, and to them indeed Whyte Melville's lines apply — 



" O'er the open still careering, 

 Fence and furrow freely clearing, 

 Like the winds of heaven leaving little trace of where they pass." 



Gallant old Mercury ! If there is anywhere a temple 

 of fame for horses, he deserves a niche in it. 



Chance, too, was no bad one. Mr. Fort will remember 

 seeing him, in a smart gallop near Brailsford, clear, without 

 touchmg a tioiff, a clean-cut stake and bound fence set on 

 a bank, the top of the hedge being a good six feet or more 

 from the ground. It was an astonishing performance. 

 Not that the place was so very strong, as Mr. Fort's little 

 Pit-a-pat, coming next, cleared aw^ay most of it with her 

 hind legs. Curiously enough Chance fell at the very next 

 fence, some low, but strong, timber. Poor little horse ! 

 his end was a sad one. After running in the first of Sir 

 Peter AValker's point-to-point races, the groom washed his 

 mouth out with some water, drenching him out of a soda- 

 water bottle. The horse had not o'ot his wind after the 

 gallop, and the water, going down his wind-pipe, choked him. 



Mi\ Holden, of Aston (which he sold to Mr. Winter- 

 bottom two or three years ago), is hunting-bred to the 

 backbone. The name of Holden has been for generations 

 a household word, where hunting is concerned, in Derby- 

 shire, and the present bearer of it is no " degenerate scion 

 of a noble race." He is not a man whose nerves are easily 

 shaken, and so perhaps hunting and steeplechasing did not 

 afford sufficient excitement for him, and he was fain to 



