154 THE BROCK LESBY HOUNDS. [1894 



an excursion to Great Coates. By the railway side hounds 

 then went back to Great Coates, took another turn round 

 Drake's Gorse, and then drove their fox away to Healing, 

 where in mid-field they ran into him. 



Meeting at Aylesby Mill on February Oth, 1894, 

 hounds registered a good fast run of fifty minutes from 

 Irby Dales, their beaten fox just saving his brush through 

 the medium of an open drain. Facing the open at Wash- 

 ingdales, they went away over Rush Hill to Laceby, and 

 crossing Lock 'Em Lane swept over the Vale, with Bradley 

 AVood on their left to the Gears. Running straight through, 

 they went to Tennyson's Holt, and then turned right-handed 

 to run at liest pace to Scartho, where their fox found 

 sanctuary. But the plum of the season was the great 

 " Cleethorpes run " of March 5th, and thanks to a good 

 little blood mare called Miss Davis, I saw every yard of 

 it, and I never enjoyed a gallop more. We had met at 

 Roxton Wood, and the earlier proceedings were most 

 fiat, stale, and unprofitable. It was not till late in the 

 afternoon, when the bulk of the field were " coftee- 

 housing " hard by, or had gone home, that we roused the 

 good fox in Milner's Wood that was to send some of us 

 home so thoroughly happy and pleased with ourselves, 

 and at the same time to turn " the picnickers " green 

 with envy and disappointment. And yet we nearly lost 

 the gallop at the outset. Dale had drawn down from the 

 Keel by road and back again, without a whimper, and was 

 blowing hounds out on to the road again, and the second 

 whipper-in, having cracked hounds to him, was in the 

 very act of leaving his post when, a few yards away, he 

 caught sight of a fox stealing quietly from the Keelby 

 corner of the covert, and, as he thought, unobserved. He 

 must have lain snug at the very edge of the covert, for 

 hounds had drawn quite up to him. A ringing holloa 

 told him that he was discovered and caused him to quicken 

 his pace, and a minute later Dale had the Brocklesby 

 bitches in hot pursuit on his track. Going away towards 

 Limber, first they turned and crossed the Keelby road at 



