236 THE BROCKLESBY HOUNDS. 



horse a bit if he gets in ; some with soft banks should be 

 picked, too, to teach him to take off soon enough, and to 

 allow sufficient margin for landing, so as to prevent 

 slipping in backwards, and they should be sufficiently 

 holding to teach a lesson by means of the struggle to get 

 out. I know an unfortunate who, in a run from Sutton 

 Thorns, went plump into the first or second drain he came 

 to. His second horseman arrived on the other side, and 

 leaving him to extricate No. 1, he jumped on the back of 

 No. 2, and went straight into the next drain with him. 

 No. 2 was got out in a quarter of an hour or twenty 

 minutes, but No. 1 was in nearly three hours. 



The late Mr. G. A. Carr had a cob that was a wonderful 

 drain-jumper ; he would creep down the banks and stand- 

 jump them in marvellous fashion. But Mr. J. Maunsell 

 Richardson, of Healing Manor, generally has the best 

 drain-jumpers in the Hunt — his huge, ungainly, ugly old 

 horse Camel was a wonder — and it is unnecessary to say 

 that Lord Yarborough invariably mounts his huntsman 

 and whippers-in on the best of cattle. 



The best marsh coverts in the strip of country under 

 discussion are Goxhill Oxmarsh, Langmere Furze, Chase 

 Hill, Burkinshaw's covert, Houlton's covert, Keeds Mere, 

 Battery Marsh, Stallingborough Scrubb Close, and Sutton 

 Thorns, and further inland, Thornton Gorse, Bygott's 

 covert, Zincs, and Rye Hill. The marsh foxes generally 

 keep to the marshes and seldom go inland. The meets 

 are generally fixed for Goxhill Station, Thornton College, 

 East Halton, Chase Hill, Immingham, Stallingborough 

 Station, and Great Coates Station, and all are usually 

 well attended by visitors from Yorkshire. The woodlands 

 lie between Brocklesby Station on the north and Caistor 

 on the south, and between the Barton street on the east 

 and the railway from Barnetby to Lincoln on the west, 

 aud more perfect cub-hunting grounds could not be 

 imagined. Wide, velvety rides, plenty of undergrowth, 

 and an unlimited supply of foxes, and never a covert 

 closed to hounds for the sake of the gun ! What could a 



