1900] A GOOD RUN FROM BODEN'S THORNS. 335 



Thursday, Brailsford. A lovely morning and a lot of people. After drawing 

 White "Wood, Mercaston Wood, and Brailsford Car blank, hoimds found in 

 Brailsford Gorse. They hunted a rather vacillating fox slowly to Lamb's farm 

 and checked. His point seemed from the first to be Ravensdale Park, and he 

 kept on working down-wind, but in a by no means straight line. But a series 

 of successful casts on the huntsman's part enabled hoimds to hunt slowly on the 

 whole — though now and then, when the fox turned up-wind temporarily, they 

 could bustle along for a field or two — by Mercaston Wood and over Wood Lane. 

 Then they pointed for Kedleston, but soon turned left-handed for Weston 

 Underwood, crossed the road and the brook, and lost their fox between the last- 

 named place and Mugginton, after about forty minutes. CuUand was blank, but 

 they found, after a long draw, in Boden's Thorns, and ran out over the Trusley 

 road, and, bearing right-handed, ran fast by Thurvaston Stoop. Swinging left- 

 handed, still fast, they came to the road from Thurvaston and checked. Hitting it 

 otf again, they bore left-handed over Thurvaston Marsh, where Mr. Rupert Leigh, 

 on a grey horse, sounded the depths of a wide ditch, and so on, to the Stretton 

 farm, where wire abounds. They ran parallel with the road for some time, and 

 checked just before reaching the road from Boden's Thorns to Sutton. Here a 

 funeral procession was on the point of starting on its melancholy journey, and 

 there was a startling sense of incongruity between the life and animation of the 

 chase and the sad, slow, solemn progress to man's long home. But little time 

 was left us for moralizing, however, for a patient bit of questing on the part of 

 hounds and huntsman resulted in ousting, first a black cat and then a somewhat 

 draggled little fox from among the cabbages in a field beyond the road. Getting 

 away right on his back, hounds began to run like mad, parallel with the road 

 leading to Boden's Thorns. Just before reaching that snug covert the fox was 

 headed and turned sharp right-lianded parallel with the Trusley road, over the 

 brook, past Trusley, to Radburne Rough, hounds running fast all the way. 

 Without entering the covert, they ran nearly up to Parson's Goi-se, but turned 

 short of the Derby road left-handed over the Trusley brook and a small tributary 

 beyond, by Woodhouse. Once over the brook there w^as a longish check, and 

 then they hit it off and ran, rather slowly, over Hardley Hill till they lost their 

 Ibx near Sutton church, after a capital run of an hour and ten minutes. 



Saturday, Yoxall village. Found in High Hall Hill Wood, and kept running 

 round and about Wichnor Park for an hour or so with a bad scent. Once their 

 fox lay down, and they ran right over him, but he beat them in the end by 

 getting to ground in a gravel-pit beyond the lodge on the Lichfield side. Found 

 in a small cover between the big wood and the Barton road. Ran up to the 

 road and back to the Big Wood. Out again, up-wind, over the road, passed 

 Longcroft Hall and White's Wood, to the Black Firs, Dunstall, thence to Fern 

 Hill Wood on the Rangemore road. A cast towards Dunstall Hall succeeded in 

 hitting off the line between Black Firs and the road by the Hall, but the fox had 

 got too long a start, and was given up. If hounds could not run very well up- 

 wind, it is not surprising that they could not run at all any other way, and, 

 though they found plenty of foxes, they could do nothing with them. 



Tuesday, November 20th, Loxley. This was a capital day's sport. Few of 

 us will forget the great run which one of Mr. Blount's foxes treated us to some 

 years ago to Moddershall Oaks, and the old customer of to-day was one of the 

 same good travelling sort. There was no scent in covert, and consequently 

 hounds were a long time in finding, and, when at length the fox was halloaed 

 away over the miry lane at the top of Carry Coppice, they did not hit his line at 

 once. With a travelling fox a good start is half the battle, as every one knows. 



