^2g?r- "-^^^ ^ 



148 FOX-HUNTING FROM SHIRE TO SHIRE 



possible to look back and enjoy again the happy 

 scenes of the chase, long after others have taken 

 our place in the saddle. We will, therefore, hark 



^,, back to Friday, February 

 y/y 13, 1 8g I, when the Bel voir 

 hounds under the master- 

 ^5fe, 1^1 -^1-, ^^^^P ^^ ^^^ seventh Duke 

 "Ife^"'^ of Rutland — Lord John 

 ^U^s^UfM' Manners the statesman— 

 '"^ ' ' ' A scored a wonderful day's 



sport after meeting at 

 Aswarby Park, Lincoln- 

 shire, where resided the 

 late Sir Thomas Which- 

 . . ^ X,- r, ■„ cote. This fine sportsman 



Lincomsnire Drams. -t 



of the old school, possessed 

 a stud of magnificent hunters, and was one of the 

 hardest men across country in his day, besides being 

 a great fox preserver. 



The morning was bright with a nip of frost in the 

 air, and Frank Gillard brought fifteen and a half 

 couples of bitch-hounds the twenty miles from 

 kennels at Belvoir. What a show these hounds 

 always make at covert side ! good looks, straight 

 legs, and long pedigrees describe them, for they 

 are level as the sand on the seashore. Referring 

 to back lists, we find the kennel was full of Weather- 

 gage blood, and the sires in ofiice were Gambler 

 (1884), and his litter brother Gameboy ; Forecast 

 (1885) by Weathergage ; Pirate (1885) by Proctor 

 from Nightwatch, some of the hardest blood in the 

 Belvoir kennel, so Frank Gillard used to say ; 

 Shamrock (1886) by Dashwood, who founded a 

 Belvoir clan ; Nominal (1885) by Gambler from 

 Needy, one of the most determined hounds on the 

 line of a fox. Top of the 1891 entry were 



