54 The Hunting Countries of England. 



Grove, and stretcliing', practically, from below Rother- 

 ham to Doncaster — and, on sufferance, still further 

 along the southern bank of the Don. Lord Fitz- 

 william's little country, in fact, is nothing more than 

 a small outlying, and supposedly impossible_, tract left 

 unhunted between the Badsworth and the Grove. It 

 was thus that Lord Fitzwilliam found it when he suc- 

 ceeded to the Went worth Estates about a score of 

 years ago ; and here he at once proceeded to estabhsh 

 a pack, by drafts from the family kennels at Milton 

 and from Capt. Percy Williams. So successfully did 

 he make the best of a bad job, that, wherever his 

 hounds are able to get about at all, there are sure to 

 be foxes for them to hunt. Some very queer places 

 do they find themselves in at times : but love of sport 

 is the strongest instinct in every Yorkshireman^s soul, 

 and the hounds are everywhere appreciated — some- 

 times almost to persecution. To the few men residing 

 in Sheffield and Eotherham who have been taught to 

 hunt, the presence of such a pack is a blessing on a 

 par with Nature^s bounty in coal and iron — on which 

 they thrive and amid which they follow the hounds. 

 There are staunch and good sportsmen, too, come out 

 of Sheffield — quite apart from the thousands who will 

 travel half a dozen miles by rail, in order to join it on 

 foot and holloa a fox at the most suburban meets — 

 and still more apart from such an instance as went to 

 typify prosperity some years ago, when two colliers 

 bought a horse and hunting kit between them, and in 

 turn worked them three days a week. Fifty or sixty 

 horsemen are to be found at every meet; and tiny — even 

 makeshift — as the country is, three days a week are 



