56 



THE WARWICKSHIRE HOUNDS. 



Lord Middleton 

 1811-1821. 



Scenting winds. 



Campbell came up in about ten minutes after the fox 

 had gone to ground. Sir Charles Mordaunt, 

 on a horse he had given 450 guineas for, to Mr. 

 Manning, went well to Eathorpe, where his horse came 

 to a standstill. He left him at Lord Clonmell's, at 

 Weston, and sent for veterinary surgeons from Kineton, 

 Stratford, and Worcester, but he died two or three 

 days afterwards. Not one of Lord Middleton's men, 

 capitally mounted as they were, could get within reach 

 of the hounds, which were left in the Duke of Beaufort's 

 Kennels at Heythrop, for the night. Mr. Alfred Lloyd, 

 of Goldicote House, went well to the end of the day 

 and then rode his horse back to his abode at Goldicote 

 in the evening. The pace throughout the whole of the 

 run was exceptional and the country a most severe one. 

 It speaks much for the condition of the hounds that 

 they were able to run as they did. 



It is worth noting that during the run it hailed and 

 rained with a cutting north-east wind. I have a 

 recollection of reading somewhere that the celebrated 

 Epwell run, described a few chapters back, was run 

 under somewhat similar conditions. I, however, 

 refrained from mentioning the fact then, because I 

 could not turn up the authority where it occurs. Upon 

 the subject of "Scent," I do not wish to be tempted to 

 say much ; it is a subject in which we may soon lose 

 ourselves. In drawing attention, however, to the 

 similarity between these two severe runs — the Epwell 

 and the Ditchley — as regards their meteorological con- 

 ditions, I venture to opine that, as regards atmospheric 

 bearings upon runs, a north-east wind will be found to 

 have been more productive of long and severe runs than 

 a wind from any other quarter. The fact, I suppose, 

 is that it generally brings frost, and scent is generally 

 good after a frosty night, provided, as Mr. Beckford 

 said years and years ago, that the frosj; is not in the act 

 of going at the time. I have no doubt that what may 

 be called "model hunting days" are, as a rule, more 



