156 THE BR0CKLE8BY HOUNDS. [1894 



The season which finished on March 29th was a very 

 satisfactory one, one hundred and twelve foxes being 

 killed and forty-six marked to ground in one hundred and 

 seventeen days, and some excellent sport having been 

 enjoyed. 



The following season, 1894-95, was most eventful, 

 for not only did it contain more red-letter days than any 

 preA^ous one, and not only was there a better record of 

 the slain than in any other year during Will Dale's tenure 

 of office, but it was the last year during which he had 

 two packs of hounds under his care at Brocklesby, Lord 

 Yarborough, owing to the great depression in agriculture 

 and other reasons, having decided to part with his dog- 

 hounds. This pack, the result of nearly three hundred 

 years' careful breeding, was sold to the Earl of Lonsdale 

 at the end of the season, and what it cost Lord Yarborough 

 to part with these beautiful hounds can only be imagined. 

 It is not too much to say that every hunting man in the 

 Brocklesby country felt it as a personal loss, while to 

 Dale it came as a terrible blow, and the last words penned 

 in his diary, on April 16th, 1895, were as follows : — 



" The most dreadful thing attending it (the last day 

 of the season) was that it was the last day of the dog 

 hounds before parting with them. The greatest calamity 

 ever known to hunting and Brocklesby." 



Cub-hunting began on August 22nd, l)ut the hounds 

 were confined to kennels a week owing to the death of 

 that fine old sportsman, Sir John Astley ; he was buried 

 on October 16th, and the gathering of Brocklesby sports- 

 men was a most representative and impressive one. 



The first noteworthy run this season was on November 

 5th, when an outlying fox from Saxby stood up before 

 hounds for an hour and a half, they eventually running 

 from scent to view and killing him in the open at Burn- 

 ham. 



But the most remarkable run in Dale's recollection 

 took place on the 1 2th of the same month — in fact, he put 

 it down as the best he ever saw. It was an eight-mile 



