318 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [1900 



straight-running fox. Up-wind he went, setting his pursuers an easy task as they 

 flitted along over a charming line of country by Hunger Hill pointing for 

 Laurence's Wood. So they ran for seventeen blissful minutes to within a field 

 of the wood — 



•• Till at last a check compc41od them 

 In his face to look; 

 Forward then their huntsman held them, 



Eight across the brook. 

 Rose again tlie joyous rally, 



Clamoured louder still, 

 Woke the hamlet in the valley, 

 Echoed round the hill." 



Would that it were possible for humbler pens to describe all runs in such melli- 

 fluous verse, but there is but one Whyte-Melville, and this is a prosaic world. In 

 everyday parlance, then, a man with a dog had turned the fox, so, after making 

 sure that he had not made his up-wind point into Laurence's Wood, the huntsman 

 cast down-wind over the Blythe by Hamstall Kidware bridge, and, hitting off the 

 line on the further side, hounds hunted their fox nicely, leaving Rough Park on 

 the left, into the Brakenhurst, after a good forty minutes. Mr. Arliss's stud-groom 

 viewed him very tired over the road near the bottom of the hill into Jackson's 

 Bank, and, curiously enough, a few seconds later, Mr. Arliss himself viewed him 

 back again near the top. Unluckily, there were two lines directly they crossed 

 the road, the main body going on with the fresh one, while only a few couples 

 turned back and stuck to the line of the hunted one. But they could not get on 

 very well with him, and, by the time the huntsman came back with the pack, 

 the tired fox had got too far ahead, so he beat them in the end after a capital 

 hunt and close on a six-mile point. They found again in the Birch Wood, and, 

 after a ring or two round and about the wood with seemingly a moderate scent, 

 hunted him over into the Chantry Wood, where they checked. But, hitting off 

 the line between the Newborough road and the wood, they turned right-handed, 

 and ran like wildfire up the hill for Hoar Cross Park by Mr. Watt's house, with 

 only one gentleman [Mr. Caldecott] really with them. Across the park they 

 raced by Bath Wood, and then pointed for Piough Park. This, however, seemed 

 to be too far a cry for their fox, or perhaps they changed, for they ran back into 

 the Brakenhurst, through it, and across to Yoxall, losing him close to the Forester's 

 Arms, after a capital thirty minutes. No doubt he found safety in some outhouse. 

 Thursday, Spread Eagle. We rode oft" in great hopes of a good gallop to 

 draw that favourite covert. Hell Meadows. Before long a fox broke away at 

 the lower end, and ran along the brook pointing for Mickleover, with a couple 

 and a half of hounds after him. Every one galloped to the corner, and Squire 

 Chandos-Pole, who was acting as Master in the unavoidable absence of Mr. Fort, 

 blew his horn, while we waited for the huntsman and the main body of the pack. 

 But we waited in vain, for while we had been chattering about the war, or our 

 horses, or anything else you like, the hounds had got away right on the back of 

 another fox on the other side, and were running up-wind as hard as they could 

 go, with no one with them but their huntsman, and were not caught till they had 

 run their fox to gi'ound close to Littleover after a sharp burst of seven or eight 

 minutes. It was an unfortunate contretemps, and of course every soul laid the 

 blame on everything and everybody except the right person, which was him- 

 self. For after all one's self, and nobody else, is to blame, if we fail to be with 

 hounds ; but most of us try to lay it on something or somebody, which is possibly 

 more comforting, but does not alter the fact. After every device had been 



