194 



THE WARWICKSHIRE HOUNDS. 



Lord 



WlLLOUGIIBY DK 



Broke. 



The Season 

 1890-91. 



A hard season. 



A great frost. 



From Idlicote to 

 Banbury. 



And now to speak of the season just past (1890-1). 

 But how ? Do my readers ever remember such a 

 season. The autumn was an iron one, and those who 

 attempted to see anything of the cubbing got their 

 bones pretty well shaken out of their bodies. But a 

 moist November, it was said, would put all things 

 right. November came, but the moisture is still a 

 thing of the future. When ** the Warwickshire" 

 kept their appointment at Goldicote on December 8th 

 who thought that it would be the last meet until 

 January 26th ? Who thought that the frost, which 

 had so evidently got hold of the ground on the former 

 date, was not going to loosen its grip until seven solid 

 weeks had slipped away ? Nearly two months out of 

 the middle of the fox-hunter's time, during which the 

 hunters were eating their heads oflF, and their owners 

 disconsolately watching the increasing degrees of frost 

 with never a chance of a thaw. And when 

 at last the face of the country was again 

 seen, we were not to have even then an un- 

 broken time of it. With the driest and hardest Feb- 

 ruary of recent years, and the blizzard of March, 

 although we had a country full of foxes ready to kill, 

 and one of the best packs in the land ready to kill them, 

 very little could be done, and the end of the season put 

 a not unwelcome end to the anxieties and uncertanties 

 which had been the foxhunter's portion. But 

 one piece of work which they managed to 

 do I must tell, and that was how, on 

 February 17th, they met at Idlicote, found in the 

 Grove, and killed their fox within a few fields of Ban- 

 bury town. It was a run which will long be remem- 

 bered by those who were in it, indeed, one rider said it 

 was one of the best things he had ever seen, and as be 

 rode it all and has seen as much of the Warwickshire 

 runs as most men in his time, and probably more, we 

 may take it that it may be ranked with some of their 

 best doings. After some knocking about in the 



