HARRIERS AND BEAGLES 277 



the laugh which the remark raised caused a cessation 

 of the threats, and in two minutes the wine merchant 

 had restored peace. The hare was then pushed out of 

 the hedge and the hunt resumed, but shortly afterwards 

 she or another hare took hounds through a small 

 plantation, beyond which was a colliery. Scores of 

 men and boys were on the ''pit heap," and all left 

 their work and threw themselves in the hunt. The 

 hare, of course, sought the shelter of the little covert 

 again, but they were all round the place in a moment, 

 and as hounds caught the hare a dozen of them were 

 to be seen struggling for her carcase, while the hounds 

 slunk away, frightened at the shouting and noise. 



For three seasons or three and a half Mr. Green- 

 well's hounds showed wonderful sport, and then their 

 owner, who was now in poor health, parted with them 

 to the late Lord Lonsdale, who placed them at Penrith 

 for the use of his tenants. But after his own pack had 

 gone there was no falling off in the number of harrier 

 packs which came to Broomshields. Harriers owned by 

 the late Mr. Nicholas Bowser, of Bishop Auckland, were 

 there frequently, and so too were the Durham Beagles, 

 of which Mr. Crichton Forster was then master. But 

 the pack which came oftenest in the early eighties were 

 the Darlington Foot Harriers, a seventeen-inch pack 

 of which Mr. Thomas Watson was master and hunts- 

 man. This pack was established in 1874, and as far 

 as work was concerned it was almost impossible to 

 find fault with it. Mr. Greenwell had decided that 

 hounds less than twenty inches were not big enough for 

 the tallest of the stone walls, but Mr. Watson thought 

 otherwise, and it is a fact that his hounds could climb 

 a wall which was too high for them to jump on to the 

 top of in foxhound fashion. Mr. Watson hunted his 



