1898] DEATH OF LORD VERNON. 273 



they had to give him up. Langley Gorse held a fox, which was viewed away 

 pointing for Markeaton, but turned left-handed and crossed the brook. In the 

 field beyond this a fox was caught napping in a great tangled hedgerow and killed, 

 while the hunted fox went on towards Vicar Wood. It was good luck getting 

 hold of this fox, as he was a mangy one ; besides, there was not scent enough to 

 bring one to hand otherwise. Luckily there were no mishaps to chronicle, but a 

 young lady [Miss Chandos-Pole] set us an example in courage by jumping a very 

 forbidding post and rails fortified by barbed Avire on the top. The only man who 

 ventured to follow her bore strong testimony to the ugly nature of the obstacle 

 in the shape of punctures in his horse's knees. As the French prisoners at 

 Ashbourne remarked when they saw the famous game of football played at that 

 ancient town, " If the English call this pla}% they may well fight." 



Owing to the lamented death of Lord Vernon, the Meynell hounds did not 

 hunt on Saturday, nor did they go out till after the funeral. 



Mr. Chandos-Pole's hounds had a good day on Saturday, finding at Cotton 

 Wood, and killing their fox in the open after a good run of over an hour. 



December 21st, 1898. Although it is a matter of fox-huutmg history, it may 

 not be generally known that the late Lord Vernon, on whose account the hounds 

 did not hunt for three days, had a special claim to this mark of respect, apart 

 from those usually recognized. For the late baron's great-great-grandfather, 

 "the hunting lord," had a pack of hounds at Sudbury as early as 1793. 



From then till now is a long step, and in the interval much good sport has been 

 chronicled, and so, to take up the thread and join it to fresh material, let us jog on 

 to Thatched Lodge on Wednesday, December 21st, in this year of grace 1898. 

 A rare hunting morning it is, too, and people are all the keener perhaps for their 

 enforced abstinence. Hounds dash into the vast recesses of Kingston Wood, 

 and rouse a fox from his kennel in a twinkling. No loiterer he. He is up and 

 away, and hounds slip out after him in less time than it takes to tell. Hope 

 whispers a flattering tale. Doubtless this is the beginning of that run from the 

 woods with an old Staffordshire Hector which will be the talk of the decade. 

 Delude yourself if you can. Set your horse going, and console yourself for the 

 disappointment of the fox getting to ground in two fields with the pleasure which 

 anticipation yielded you. Better luck next time. But, alas ! the luck does not 

 come. Cold experience has chilled hope's ardour, and the consequence will be 

 that most of us will be left behind when the good thing comes off. It is not given 

 to every one to hope on, hope ever. And so a slacker field dawdles on after 

 hounds through Kingston Wood, and they find a fox and drag after him, scent- 

 less to Wanfield Hall, when a fresh one jumps up, whom, with no accession of 

 pace, they hunt spiritlessly through Woodcock Heath, and lose him. They found 

 again in Bagot's woods, and hunted him — right pretty hunting it was, too — 

 across that wild, romantic park, full of old-world memories, into the woods again, 

 and across Buttermilk Hill into Swilcar Lawn. What made our fox turn back 

 here? What is the use of asking? Turn he did, sharply enough, too. Was it 

 for the sake of company ? Perhaps it was, for there seemed to have been a brace 

 in front of them all at once. The field turned back, too, with much abuse of 

 boggy rides, and kept along the top — confused by a divided cry. Meanwhile, a 

 change has come over the spirit of the dream, for the main body of the pack are 

 slipping along the lower side with a fox that means going. Go he does, too, and to 

 some purpose. Out at the bottom over Leason's Farm they run hke mad and 

 Steve's second horseman on his homeward way is astonished by the novel sio'ht 

 of the Meynell Hounds running gloriously, and not a living soul with them. His 

 VOL. II. X 



