230 HARE-HUNTING AND HARRIERS 



rendered the ground much fitter for foot-work than 

 for hunting a fox over the rugged and steep moorlands 

 and through the rocky dales of North Derbyshire. 

 All the earths round had been stopped, and the fox 

 was duly unkennelled and the pack laid on. As 

 sometimes happens in frost there was a ravishing scent, 

 and a marvellous chase ensued. The fox took them 

 by Taxal, near Whaley Bridge, over the Duke of 

 Devonshire's moors, skirting Axe Edge, the highest 

 range in the county, on to Macclesfield Forest ; thence 

 by Tagsneys, Crookward, and Langly and Gracely 

 Woods, to Swithingly, where they sustained a short 

 check. Hitting off the line again they followed him 

 to Horsly and Gawsworth, and finally ran into and 

 killed this wonderfully stout fox at Clouds Hill, near 

 Congleton. The fox had stood up before his pur- 

 suers for just under forty miles. The horses got their 

 riders back as far as the " Cat and Fiddle " Inn, on 

 Axe Edge, the highest inn in England, but were 

 so beaten that they had to be left there for the night. 



This is by far the finest and longest run with a pack 

 of harriers that I ever heard of. Few, if any, packs 

 of foxhounds have ever beaten it. It made so deep 

 an impression on the country-side at the time that 

 some rustic bard composed a song, commemorating 

 this great hunt, which song was sung at all popular 

 gatherings in the Peak district for more than fifty 

 years after. There is still an old man living in this 

 district who used, as a boy with a fine voice, to go all 

 round the country to sing it at various assemblies.* 



* I have printed this song in Appendix C, not for its metre, 

 which is very halting at times, but as a curiosity in harrier 

 annals. As a contemporaneous document, it is striking 

 evidence of Squire Frith's famous run. One version of the 

 song, gathered from oral tradition, says the fox was run to 



