BARON DE ROBECK, 1862-1868 



ever, he had come to the latter place he had re- 

 venged himself on many of his enemies by leading 

 them over a small bit of soft semi-boggy land, 

 where the ditches made for drainage purposes were 

 wide, deep and with takings-off of the worst 

 character, save in a few spots where there were 

 causeways. These thinned the field enormously. 

 Off Bally caghan the Hortland fox was joined by a 

 vixen and they ran past an ancient burying-place 

 in Indian file for a field or two, when they separated. 

 Some six or eight couples of hounds followed the 

 vixen, and unfortunately rolled her over within a 

 couple of fields of the upper road to Hortlands. 

 The rest of the pack — the bitches were the per- 

 formers of the day — stuck to their old love, and ran 

 him for a long time before they could be stopped. 



Mr Steuart Duckett has very kindly told me of 

 a curious incident which happened at the end of 

 the Baron's Mastership. " A fox went away from 

 Ballyhook," he says, " with hounds close to him. 

 He ran the far side of a small bank at the corner of 

 which was a gap. A man named Wilson, a brother 

 of that gallant old lady, Mrs O'Neil of Athy, 

 started off beside the pack on the near side of the 

 fence, met the fox crossing the gap, galloped over 

 him and stretched him out dead." 



Mr Duckett adds: " Do you know that your 

 father, Lord Naas, challenged the whole of Ireland 



325 



