126 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [1885 



road at tlaat — by eleven. On one of these occasions he 

 was going so fast that his brougham knocked a trap, with 

 a lady and gentleman in it, right into the ditch, to their 

 no small indignation. 



But to return to the subject in hand. Mr. Mayuard 

 married, in 1887, the eldest daughter of Mr. Sacheverell 

 Sitwell, of Stainsby, and came to Rolleston Cottage, in 

 1890, moving thence to Egginton Hall, where he now 

 lives, in 1898. His great delight is to instil the rudi- 

 ments of the game, which he himself plays so well, into 

 " ingenuous youth," and they say that he looks after the 

 juvenile eleven, which stays each year at his house for an 

 annual cricket match, as if he were the father of them all. 



Not but what he is just as much at home 



" on some dull, shivery morning, 

 When our fingers feel numb and our faces are blue, 

 When the fences look blind and the ditches are yawning," 



as he is in the cricket field ; and when hounds run, and 

 the good ones settle down in their places, you may be 

 quite sure "Jeff" Maynard will be one of them. 



The season opened with abnormally warm weather ; in 

 fact, November 2nd, the opening day, was like a May 

 morning indeed. A capital one it was, too, for they ran 

 fast from Sudbury Coppice by Cubley Bottom and Yeave- 

 ley to Shirley Park. The fact of Mr. Wallroth's staking 

 and killing his good old horse, was the only drawback. 



From the Field, 1885 :— 



On Saturday, December 5th, they had a capital day from Walton. At 

 five minutes past eleven, a nod from the Master (Mr. Chandos-Pole) to Charles 

 Leedham starts us for Walton Wood, a covert which, to the honour of all con- 

 cerned never disappoints us. A whimper proclaims a find, but Reynard circles 

 the covert two or three times, and here there is no scent ; but, scent or no scent, 

 it is dangerous to trifle too long with the Meynell bitches, and our fox wisely 

 breaks on the village side, across a heavy plough, and points for Borough Fields. 

 Swinging round to the right, hounds take us fast in the direction of Homestall 

 Wood ; but the heavy plough tells on us, and we can but envy such light weights 

 as Mr. R, Fort and the new-comer, Mr. A. de Traftbrd (who galloped past us as 

 though dirt mattered nought to them). Turning now for Catton, hounds race 

 their fox through Catton Wood, and kill him in Dryden's Walk, after fifteen 



