THE HISTORY OF THE BELVOIR HUNT 



Rallywood's descendants in them through his famous son, the 

 Belvoir Rally wood. If in any pack the observant man notes 

 a hard-working hound probably of a rich black, tan and white, 

 with a fine voice, and if further he sees the same hound 

 trotting back to kennel at night with his stern up after a long 

 day, it will be a fair guess to put him down as belonging to 

 the first fox-hound family in the world. The story of the 

 coming of this hound to Belvoir is an oft-told tale, yet must 

 it once more be repeated here, nor can I improve on the story 

 as the Druid tells it. 



" Yarborough Rallywood, who has virtually made the Bel- 

 voir kennel what it now is, never ran to head, but always got 

 to the end of great runs. He was very long and low, the 

 exact image of the Ringwood that Stubbs painted for 

 Brocklesby, and with somewhat round quarters, which made 

 him rather a harrier, and although good twenty-three, he was 

 mean to those who like a big hound. In fact, he was quite a 

 multum in parvo, and Will thus summed up his merits in the 

 last sentence of the last letter he ever wrote us : ' He was the 

 lowest dog I ever saw in my life, with the largest fore rib, 

 combined with a beautiful neck and shoulders, and a pleasing, 

 intelligent countenance.' Old Will Smith wanted the Belvoir 

 Grappler, and said, ' /'// give you anything in the kennel for 

 himl and Will selected Rallywood, in spite of his broken 

 thigh. This exchange was never made, owing to Smith's 

 untimely death, and Grappler died at Belvoir ; but the nego- 

 tiations were renewed with young Will Smith, and he sent 

 Rallywood, by whom he had at one time about fourteen 

 couples of working hounds, and got Trouncer in exchange, and 

 then Raglan by Rustic, whom he liked no better. Will was 

 so fond of his prize, when he at last got hold of it, that fifty- 

 three couples of his puppies, from ten couples of ' the very best 

 stuff' in the kennel, were sent out in the second season. He 

 came to Belvoir in 185 1, at nine years old, and was worked a 

 whole season, and when he died in 1853, he found a fitting 

 necropolis in the centre of a flower plot in Will's garden, and 

 a red-currant tree now blooms over his remains." ^ 

 ' Silk and Scarlet^ pp. y]},^ 374. 

 162 



