COL. ANSTRUTHER THOMSON 381 



arrived at the loth of February ; we are eaten up 

 with foxes ; the lambing season is coming on, and 

 it is quite impossible for me to prevent the foxes 

 being destroyed if they are never hunted. Under 

 these circumstances I think it will be better, for all 

 parties that you should not withdraw a permission 

 which has not been taken away by any of your 

 predecessors for a quarter of a century, and trust 

 to me to find you a fox whenever you condescend 

 to draw my coverts. 



" Believe me, 



" Yours very truly, 



" RAINALD KNIGHTLY." 



One day we met at Dob Hall and found in 

 Brampton Wood. After running some time hounds 

 divided. Dick went to stop one lot ; the body went 

 away past Dingley, over the stiff country by Bray- 

 brook, Oxendon, under Clipstone Hill to Hothorpe, 

 Bosworth Gorse, only myself and Tom Firr with 

 them, along the banks of the canal towards Laughton 

 Hills. Here I met Jack Topham, coming back from 

 hunting with Tailby. I said, " Come along with me 

 Jack, perhaps I shall want your help ". When we 

 got to the^spinnies on Laughton Hills, when I blew 

 my horn twelve couple of strange hounds came to me, 

 and a few minutes after Jim Bailey, Tailby's whipper- 

 in, thinking I was Goodall. The hounds ran all 

 together into the covert, two or three times round 

 it, and killed. Frank Goodall was on the top, I 

 was at the bottom, and as he had to run down hill 



