1901] A GOOD DAY FROM NEW INN. 349 



Bagot's Wood, but no one could stick to hounds in the woods in such a howling 

 tempest, while no fox was likely to face it outside such snug shelter for long, so 

 the first time hounds got outside and showed a tendency to return they were 

 stopped and went home. 



Thursday, Chellaston. There are many blanks in a lottery, and the pro- 

 ceedings to-day resembled one, with the difference that there was no winning 

 number, for the find at Hell Meadows at two o'clock was no prize, inasmuch as 

 the fox, probably a vixen, could not be induced to go away. There was some 

 talk, indeed, of a fox having been viewed away, but hounds could not endorse 

 this view. Every other covert was drawn blank. 



Saturday, New Inn. Probably few people who visited this rather popular 

 fixture anticipated the treat in store for them. It was a still, grey morning 

 with a north-east wind and a rising glass, and there was a foxy whifF in the 

 air. Mosley's Gorse was drawn — and well drawn — blank, but Needwood Gorse 

 held a fox. A great rough-coated rascal it was, which ran a ring to the 

 plantation by the pond towards the Tutbury road and back again to the gorse 

 by the Duchy Wood, having been headed in the park. Once more he started 

 on the same round, only to be headed again, and to be dubbed a soft-hearted 

 brute for his pains. And, indeed, it looked like it. But he was only biding his 

 time, and, by running the road which bisects the plantation on the gorse side 

 of the house, he put the hounds to fault and gained what he wanted — time and 

 space, to wit. Then he set his head ^straight. A wheat-field bothered his 

 pursuers after they crossed the road which goes from New Inn by Needwood 

 House to the Duchy Farm ; but, when once they were on the grass, with the 

 New Inn plantation on their left rear, they started to run sharply. Across the 

 Burton Road they went straight for King's Standing, dwelling for a moment in 

 the park beyond the house. There they swooped down into the covert below 

 and away for Jackson's bank, not touching it, but running the road for New 

 Church, with timely aid from their huntsman. A turn to the right out of the 

 road brought them full cry into the Brakenhurst, through which they ran, 

 without dwelling, whilst their shrill cry rang and re-echoed amongst the tree- 

 tops, leading us all merrily down to the bottom opposite Hoar Cross. A woman 

 and some children had viewed him, while the leading couples darting out into 

 the open backed up the human tongues with their own. " Forrard " it is. For 

 a moment it looked like the usual line under the wood to Jackson's Bank, but 

 this fox had a nobler idea of his duty, for he crossed Pur brook and made his 

 way by Mr. Watts's house into Hoar Cross Park, with hounds running bravely 

 in his wake. What a merry gallop it is ! Prose cannot rise to the occasion. 

 The pen must be dipped for a moment in the Spring of Parnassus, 'ere it sinks 

 back, like our horses, into the labouring stroke of mere prosaic description. 



" With that merry music ringing, 



Father Time ia surely flinging 

 Golden sand about the moments as he shakes them from the glass; 



Horn and hound are chiming gladly, 



Horse and man are vying madly 

 In the glory of the gallop. Forty minutes on the grass ! " 



How good it is. Hounds dwell for a second in the park. See! there is a 

 ■quiver, and a dart, and a fling, and they are off again at score, with Bath Wood 

 on their right. The gate is locked, but a man [Mr. Dudley Fox], who takes no 

 <lenial, sums up the situation in a moment as he sails over the uninviting fence 

 by the side of it — " Farmer's Pride is the sort to ride," and he cracks never a 



