The Sport of Our <iAncestors 



reader wish he had had the chance of seeing this 

 fine run. 



Lord Redesdale was one of the best friends to Fox- 

 hunting that ever hved. It hurt his feehngs so acutely to 

 see any covert drawn blank that he is said to have instructed 

 his agent to try to buy the covert in question for him in 

 order that such a disaster might not happen again. He 

 became master of, and in fact founded, the Heythrop 

 Hounds when the sixth Duke of Beaufort relinquished his 

 Oxfordshire country and withdrew to Badminton. 



Jem Hills made his mark in the Midlands, and kept his 

 post for thirty- two years. He is said to have introduced 

 * the quick forward cast ' into the provinces, as practised 

 by Mr. Osbaldeston in the Shires (sic). Whatever this 

 may mean, neither Jem Hills nor Mr. Osbaldeston, nor 

 any one else, could ever turn a bad scent into a good one by 

 forcing the pace. It is possible that neither the hard riders 

 at Melton nor the Oxford undergraduates cared very much 

 or even knew whether the Hounds had a line or not, pro- 

 vided there was plenty of galloping and jumping. At any 

 rate Jem Hills was very popular at the University. But 

 the Tar Wood run was evidently an orthodox affair, and 

 ranks as one of the classic days of the nineteenth 

 century. 



52 



