YORKSHIRE 247 



contrary direction. To Heslett Wood we went, and away went a 

 fox. Hounds never went faster than these did for twenty-five 

 minutes, when they came to the first check. Sir Belhngham had 

 sent his first horse home, and was upon a five-year-old, in little 

 better than dealer's condition, so he prudently pulled up at the 

 check; but as far as he did go he went well. "I shall melt his 

 grease,"''' said he to me. " That you certainly will," replied I; for 

 he was then as white as a sheet. To make short of my story, we 

 ran this fox — sometimes chasing, sometimes hunting, as the nature 

 of the soil admitted — for one hour and twenty-two minutes, and the 

 last twenty minutes in the dark, or we should certainly have tasted 

 him. " We want the lamps lit," said I to his Lordship, as he was 

 cramming his mare at a fence without knowing which side the 

 ditch was, and without seeing a gate which I espied in the corner. 

 " I think we do," said this veteran sportsman ; but he disdained 

 leaving his line for the gate. I saw the place afterwards, and it 

 was an ugly drop into a turnpike road. Soon after this we 

 stopped the hounds, just as they were getting into Snape Park. 



I dined this day at Newton House, situated at the two hvmdred 

 and twentieth mile-stone on the London and Glasgow road, close to 

 the village of Londonderry, and in that part of the road known by 

 the name of Leeming Lane. When first Lord Darlington inhabited 

 it, it was upon quite a small scale, and abounded with incon- 

 veniences, which nothing but fox-hunting could have reconciled a 

 Nobleman with his means to have put up with. In consequence, 

 however, of an accident, occasioned by the falling of a stack of 

 chimneys in a very tempestuous night, about five years back, it was 

 razed to the ground and rebuilt by his Lordship on a very consider- 

 able scale. The kennel and stables are close to the house, and the 

 whole is shut out from the road by a very high wall. The house 

 possesses every convenience, as well as comfort, and is the most 

 complete hunting box in England, perhaps in any other country ; 

 and here Lord Darlington says he spends the happiest days of the 

 year. The stables and offices for the servants are quite perfect of 

 their kind, as also is the kennel. This place, with a pretty estate 



* "A burnt child dreads the fire." This has happened to Sir B. more than 

 once. 



