1899] A HILTON DAY. 303 



of their immediate followers. Hounds ran straight on into Catton Wood, and 

 right through it. Some men were halloaing and holding up their hats on the hill 

 to the left. But the pack, adopting Bromley Davenport's advice to " beware of 

 false halloas and juvenile riot," stuck to the line and turned short with the hunted 

 fox, making rare play up the grassy slope to the right to the covert on its summit. 

 Rattling him through it, they ran from scent to view, and roiled him over in the 

 spinny across the lane after a capital hound run of forty minutes. Scent was 

 catchy, and the nature of the ground and other things against them, so that they 

 deserve every credit for their performance, while our thanks are due, and no 

 doubt were duly offered, to Mr. Ratcliff. After drawmg Walton Wood blank, 

 hounds went home. 



Saturday at Dunstall calls for but little comment. In warm, spring-like 

 weather we rode about on beautiful, springy turf. No pun is intended, but as a 

 rule there is less spring in the turf as spring comes on. Before long a fox was 

 on foot, and they ran him across Dunstall and Rangemore, and round about. 

 Eventually, they ran through Scotch Hills and Yoxall Wood to the BjTkley 

 boundary, but they could carry the line no farther. A fox was viewed going 

 away from Scotch Hills, making his way to Rangemore, and this may have been 

 the hunted one, though of course it is only guesswork. After drawing sundry 

 Rangemore and Dunstall coverts blank, hounds were moved off" to Sinai Park, 

 but though there was a report of five foxes having been seen together hereabouts 

 lately, not one was forthcoming. The Henhurst was blank, and so, alas ! was 

 our last hope, that beautiful cover, Mosley's Gorse. It was a great pleasure to 

 every one to see Mr. Gerald Hardy driving about, looking none the worse for 

 his recent severe accident. 



Monday, April 3rd, 1899, Hilton. With everything in favour of a good day's 

 sport — fair weather, a small field, a capital country, and the certainty of a fox, to 

 wit — hounds trotted off to draw Hilton Gorse. Cast your eye for one moment 

 on the beautiful pastoral landscape, which stretches itself out mile upon mile 

 beneath you to where the soft outlines of the Weaver Hills bound your horizon, 

 and congratulate yourself, as you probably have done a thousand times, on your 

 lot being cast in the fairest hunting country in England. If there is one thing 

 wanting in that Paradise of grass to complete the picture it is the life and move- 

 ment of a pack of hounds scudding for dear life across it, and the red coats of 

 their followers to give a dash of positive colour to the subdued green of those 

 fair meadows below. Have patience one moment and you will have it, for is not 

 that a halloa, which barely reaches your ear from the leeward side of the covert, 

 endorsed by the shrill notes of the huntsman's horn, blowing " away." Away, 

 hoic, away ! 



" Away ! ere yet that blast was blown 

 The fox had o'er the meadow flown ; 

 Away, away, hia flight he took, 

 Straight pointing for the Hilton brook." 



Is there anything in life more exhilarating, anything which sets the blood 

 dancing in a man's veins, like that first maddening stampede when the fox is first 

 away? Men say the first rush of a salmon, the sight within range of the 

 monarch of the glen which, for what seems like hours, has been stalked warily, 

 or the wild gallop after the mighty boar, can equal it. It may be so, and if it 

 be, thrice blessed the man into whose favoured life Fortune showers them all. 

 Meanwhile let the present content us, as, with glad music of straining hound, 

 jingling bridle, and deep bass of thundering hoofs, the chase sweeps over the 



