278 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [189& 



a fox worthy of its traditions, for ho went away straight as a giin-barrel by Scrop- 

 tou across the Dove, and hounds dashed in after him, though 

 " It was as fierce as a torrent, as full as a tank ; 

 That a hound ever crossed it, his stars he may thank." 



But cross it they did, every one of them, and, shaking their sides on the bank, 

 blazed away by Coton, scaled the heights of Hanbury, and ran merrily over Mr. 

 Bullock's and Mr. Wallace's farms into the Greaves. How the chorus swelled 

 and gathered, echoing amongst the trees as they pushed through the covert, 

 while visions of a real old-fashioned run through the length of the woods, and, 

 perhaps, on to Blithfield, filled our hearts " big with tumultuous joy," as old 

 Somerville has it. But it was not to be. We may " nourish a verdant youth 

 with the fairy tales of gallops, ancient runs devoid of truth," but such are not 

 often realized. So Avith diminished ardour hounds turned back through the 

 Greaves, out over Mr. Wallace's farm, through Squire Arliss's new gorse — where, 

 haply, they changed — across the "dimble" by the Rectory, down the hill again 

 over the Coton road, at the bottom of Hanbury Hill into the Plaister Pit coverts. 

 Here the last became first, and the first became last, for those who had gone to 

 the uttermost part of the Greaves, and even to the ultima Tliule of Draycott 

 Cliff, had a lot of leeway to make up, which they might have had cause to rue, 



if But why deal in " ifs " ? The fox, of course, got to ground in the 



labyrinthine windings of the alabaster workings, and there was an end on't. 

 Hounds were taken back across the river, and found and ran to ground in the 

 top Foston covert. Another was halloaed away, and an effort was made to hunt 

 him, but without success. They found again in the small covert next to the 

 Pennywaste, and a rare good fox was he. Across the main Derby road he 

 went, and turned right-handed towards Foston, with hounds running hard in 

 his wake, and treating their followers to some fences garnished with "new- 

 made graves." Pvight-handed again they swung without crossing the lane from 

 Foston to Scropton, over the main road again, where the fox nearly ran under 

 the legs of the first whii)per-in's horse, back to where they found him. Hence 

 the Squire of Kadburne's well-known halloa " proclaimed his flight," to quote 

 an old author, and sent a thrill through every man, woman, and child of us all, 

 for somehow there was a sort of feeling that we were in for something better 

 than common. There was too much plough hereabouts for hounds to run hard, 

 but they proved that they could Imnt, which is far better. Towards Hilton and 

 its famous gorse they worked out the line, clustering together like bees, and 

 turning handily with their fox as he turned left-handed for Church Broughton, 

 just behind the house of that capital sportsman, the late Mr. Richard Bott. 

 Scent improved as they ran along the brook side, and with the Church Broughtou 

 Boylestone lane on the right, pressed on for Boylestone. Crossing the Boylestone- 

 Sudbury road, they embarked on a " pewy " country all along the holding valley 

 between Boylestone and Cubley, and the more unfavourable it was for horses, the 

 more favourable it was for hounds. Somewhere hereabouts a sportsman, well 

 versed in such matters, who had all along been well to the fore, viewed the hunted 

 fox standing listening to the diminishing cry of the pack, who had run past him on 

 the line of a fresh one, and some ladies vouched for seeing a very draggled fox 

 steahng into Potter's — perhaps this same one. Be this as it may, hounds con- 

 tinued their course up the valley, while it was a case of " lurching and lobbing and 

 bellows to mend " with not a few of their followers, and more than one cursed the 

 deep going and turns and twists over boggy water-courses, and longed for the end. 

 Up to Cubley Mill hounds ran steadily, never racing, but always forging ahead 



