THE SHIRES. 219 



that Dick Christian pounded a famous crowd of some two 

 hundred 'each determined to ride, each resolved to be first' 

 on Sir James Musgrave's Red Rose in a 'crasher over the 

 Lings to Croxton Park wall in sixteen minutes.' ' I was head 

 man all the way,' he told ' The Druid ' with pardonable pride ; 

 ' Sir James was on his old grey Baronet ; Lord Gardner, 

 Mr. Maxse, and Sir Harry (Goodricke) he was on Limner 

 were the only ones near me. Sir Harry shouts to me to 

 open a gate, and I jumps it and then turns round and laughs ; 

 " Hang you," he shouts, "that's the way you open gates, is it?" 

 It was a good five miles' regular coursing, severe jumping/ 

 Stonesby and Piper Hole are also noted meets, and from the 

 latter, if you are in luck, you will get a gallop over the best 

 part of the famed Belvoir Vale, which the veteran Dick used 

 to think afforded a 'partickler pretty landscape,' but whose 

 prettiness to ride over will depend much on the quality of your 

 horse and your heart. Then there is Melton Spinney, only 

 four miles from Melton, and Mr. Burbage's covert, which is 

 nearer still, lying in a loop where the boundaries of the Belvoir, 

 the Quorn, and the Cottesmore touch. Both these are in the 

 Duke's county, and if a good fox goes away from either towards 

 Melton, there will probably be wigs on the Green. From 

 Coston Covert to Woodwell Head ; from Mr. Sherbrooke's 

 Gorse to Holwell Mouth, to Dalby Wood, or over the Stygian 

 Smite to the Curate, are the lines 'Brooksby' specifies as 

 affording the cream of a Belvoir gallop, short and sharp, for so 

 great is the crowd and so lawless the riding on those days, that 

 the first burst is as often as not the last. Dick Christian de- 

 scribes the heroes of his early prime as ' all riding like devils 

 against each other ' across the vale. The late Mr. Bromley- 

 Davenport, in his volume called ' Sport,' reports a significant 

 conversation which once passed within his hearing. Sir Richard 

 Sutton, who was then hunting the Quorn country, at one of 

 his meets called aside a gentleman who was supposed to regard 

 his own position in the run as the capital feature in the day's 

 sport, and, pointing at one particular hound, said, ' Please 



