ii8 FOX-HUNTING FROM SHIRE TO SHIRE 



An Hour and Twenty-five Minutes to a Kill. 

 With the Belvoir. March 23, 1906 



A bite of east in the wind favoured a scent and 

 hounds brought off a rare good hunt over the cream 

 of the Lincolnshire country, killing a fine old dog- 

 fox at the finish. Folkingham was the fixture, 

 a convenient meeting place in the market square, 

 which always attracts a large gathering. All the 

 conditions were right for hunting, with a keenness 

 in the air, clear over head and moist under foot, 

 an ideal day for the spring of the year. Sir Gilbert 

 Greenall was in command, a large gathering includ- 

 ing Lady Greenall, Lord Robert Manners, and a 

 good representative Lincolnshire field, keen to take 

 a country on. The usual law was allowed, for there 

 are a great many appreciative sight-seers on these 

 occasions gathered around the pack on the green 

 opposite the residence of Mr and Mrs Cuthbert 

 Bradley, who dispensed hospitality in a stirrup- 

 cup of home-brewed orange-gin. The old coaching 

 town looks its best on a hunting morning, assuming 

 a business-like air with a procession of vehicles and 

 motor cars on the scene. 



The order of the day was to ride to the west end 

 of the new belt of firs on the far side of Mr Heathcote's 

 new covert, whither the " Squire," Mr Thomas A. 

 R. Heathcote, with his daughter had walked on to 

 see the covert drawn. The plantation of firs lies 

 on the hill-side, set some thirty years ago by a fine 

 old hunting-parson, the late Rev. Thomas Heathcote 

 of Lenton, and to-day is the winter quarters of foxes, 

 pheasants, countless pigeons, and starlings. Ben 

 Capell with a mixed pack trotted to the far end 

 to draw up wind, and at once hounds roused a fox, 

 but in less than five minutes he was numbered with 



