178 



THE WARWICKSHIRE HOUNDS. 



Lord 



WiLLOUGHBY DE 



Broke. 



' Warwickshire 

 Fridays." 



An afternoon fox 

 from Chester- 

 ton Wood. 



improve the pack. That his efforts were not in vain 

 the capital and name-making runs which Warwickshire 

 showed that season are strong evidence. On the Fridays 

 the meets were generally on the Banbury side, where 

 good grass lands are to be found, and the sport on these 

 days became proverbial, '* the Warwickshire Fridays " 

 being quite features in local hunting arrangements. Here 

 are one or two specimens of the sport of that season. 

 It opened on November 4th, at Charlecote Park. 

 Whatever might be said of the work of the morniug the 

 opening day was very far from being a mere social out- 

 ing. In the afternoon there came a piece of work 

 which would delight the heart of the most fastidious 

 sportsman, flow often it happens that the real work 

 of the day comes when the wind has been already taken 

 out of horse and man by the morning's work, and 

 possibly no second horse is forthcoming. It 

 was an afternoon fox found in Chesterton Wood 

 that gave them the noble run I am about, very 

 scantily, I am afraid, to put into black and white. 

 After leaving the Wood he made Bawcutt's cover his 

 point, and from here took them over the wind-trying 

 Burton Hills, by Avon Dassett, to MoUington Wood. 

 Then he sank the valley of the Cherwell by Oropredy, 

 near to which station the hounds were stopped, every 

 horse being done. This is the bare outline of a 

 run of twelve miles, the characteristics of 

 the country being hill and dale, which even early in 

 the day would test severely the enduring powers of 

 man and steed. A run over very much the same line 

 was had on the 11th of the same month. It originated 

 from Bishop's Gorse, and only the noble master, 

 Mr. Muntz, and Orvis could live for the first twenty 

 minutes, when they ran to Bawcutt's Covert, whence 

 they turned in the direction of the Burton Hills and 

 hunted at a slower pace to Edgcote, the floods being 

 out in that direction. 



