320 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. [1900 



was not out, otherwise no one would have enjoyed this grand ran more tlian she 

 would have done. From Lullington hounds ran on to within a field of Seal Wood. 

 Bearing left-handed, they ran back to Caldwell, where they lost him after a 

 capital ran of forty minutes, thus bringing such a day's sport to a close as must 

 have satisfied the veriest glutton. If one may be allowed to tamper with the 

 lines of a poet, nothing seems more applicable to the day than these : — 



"Fill your glasses! All good fellows. 

 Lovers of a burst; 

 Sportsmen safe, or riders jealous. 

 Bruising to be first. 



" Never spare it ! Let the donor 

 Drain his cellar's wealth ! 

 Here's the gorse ! And here's its owner, 

 Mr. RatclifTs health! 



"Surely now with each November 

 In the yearly rounds, 

 Walton shall we all remember 

 And the Meynell hounds." 



Mr. Ratcliff here mentioned is a nice light-weight and 

 a good rider to hounds. He married Miss Vaughau Lee, 

 who also goes very well, and for some years they hunted 

 from Hilton Cottage. After his father's death, in 1900, he 

 went to reside on his own property, Stanford Hall, in 

 Leicestershire. His father, Mr. Richard Ratcliff, lived at 

 Byrkley for some time, and at Radburne Hall for the two 

 or three years which preceded the purchase of Stanford. 



THE MEYNELL HUNT. 



Monday, January 14th, Doveridge. A nice morning and a hearty welcome,, 

 with open-house hospitality, are two good things in this work-a-day world, and 

 both of these boons were in store for us at Doveridge. There were foxes, too, 

 galore — cela va sans dire — and if scent was indifferent, and foxes would not go- 

 where they were wanted to, why, that, as poor Charles used to say, has happened 

 before. To make a long story short, hounds found in Eaton Wood and circled 

 round Doveridge for three mortal hours. A fox did, it is true, go boldly awaj', 

 pointing for Norbury, but hounds were busy with another which did venture as 

 far as the Dove, opposite Crake Marsh, only, however, to come back again, which 

 also has happened before. Then we went to the Hare Park, and from there a 

 fox went away, who looked as if he might have been bustled a bit earlier in 

 the day. Three couples of hounds got away on good terms with him, and after 

 them did " their vexed associates pant," as old Somerville has it. The leaders 

 ran fast, and a long stream of hounds and horsemen dotted the fair meadows 

 which lie stretched in verdant beauty between the river and Brocksford Gorse. 

 Up the hill at the Sudbury end of the gorse dashed an augmented pack, though 

 how they had got together is a mystery. Can anything beat the dash and courage 

 of a fox-hound, making up leeway through a field of horsemen ? Past the gorse- 



