SEASONS i84i-iS6g. 97 



had one day in the early part ot the season when mishaps 

 were extremely plentiful, even in the York and Ainsty country, 

 which generally has its share of them. 



They met at Skelton on November 17th, the morning 

 very frosty and the ground very hard. It is stated that 

 during the day a brace of foxes was found, but that there 

 was little done with them. The Hon. Captain Lawley got 

 a very serious fall, and had so bad a concussion that he had 

 to be removed to Mr. H.S.Thompson's house. His brother, 

 Lord Wenlock, also got a very nasty fall, his horse treading 

 on him in the scramble, and inflicting a nasty wound on his 

 neck and a laceration on the flap of the ear. He, however, 

 was able to get up and go on again. Mrs. Walker, of 

 Hawkhills, also took a fall, but was little the worse. Then 

 two gallant officers of the loth, Mr. Fife and Mr. Ponsonby, 

 came down, the former twice, and the latter three times, but 

 were happily not much worse. Major Wombwell was 

 also amono-st those who came to orief but he sustained no 

 injury beyond the shaking. Altogether it was a day of 

 disaster, and it may be remarked that such days are not 

 quite unknown in the country in the present day. 



Then comes a hiatus in the history of the hunt, and 

 but little remains of an interesting time, when the country 

 was well stocked with stout foxes, and when sport was of 

 the best. We are indebted to Colonel Meysey-Thompson 

 for preserving two or three incidents which took place 

 between the season of 1862-63 and Sir Charles Slingsby's 

 last season. One anecdote of the curious loss of a fox 

 near Sheriff Hutton shows what a fox will submit to when 

 thoroughly exhausted. They had run a fox hard from 

 Stillington to Sheriff Hutton, and they lost him mysteriously 

 in a road, out of which there are some very high banks, 

 and they could never hit off the line again. Nor was it 

 likely that they would do so, for all the time the fox was 



