THE GOLDEN AGE 



Gotham Thorns, thence straight to the River Trent at Farn- 

 don ; here the hounds crossed the Newark branch of the 

 Trent, and came to a long check. The huntsman at last got to 

 them, and carried them over Muskham Bridge ; they regained 

 the scent, but the fox was too far ahead to be regained, and 

 they gave up at Worney Wood, in the Rufford country ; an 

 eleven-mile point. This was the first time the Belvoir hounds 

 ever crossed the Trent." ^ 



The following year, January the 15th, 1851, there was a 

 most remarkable run. 



" Found in Melton Spinny, crossed the Grantham Road 

 beyond Thorpe pasture, went between Stonesby Gorse and 

 Stonesby, and over Croxton Park, to the grove of large trees 

 on the Belvoir side of the park ; here the hounds stopped 

 and bayed at the foot of a large oak tree. After some time 

 the fox was discovered fifty or sixty feet up in the tree, 

 endeavouring to conceal himself; he would not move till the 

 whipper-in climbed the tree and poked him from behind, 

 when he came away leisurely down the stem, which grew in 

 a slanting direction, and away he went. The hounds, which 

 had been taken to a short distance off, set off within one 

 hundred and fifty yards of him, and ran him at nose-end 

 through Bescaby Oaks, away at the Saltby corner, and bear- 

 ing to the right past Stonesby, left Sproxton Thorns to the 

 left, and went by Saxby to Stapleford Park. This was six 

 miles as the crow flies, up wind, and with the fox for the last 

 mile and a half in the same field as the hounds ; he here 

 turned to the right, and coming out of the park, the hounds 

 ran him at a decreased pace to Melton Spinny, whence they 

 went away with a fresh fox, and this gallant fellow saved his 

 life. Great distress among the horses. Sir T. Whichcote had 

 about the best of it. The above scene of the fox in the tree 

 was some years after modelled in silver, with equestrian 

 figures of the present Duke of Rutland, Sir T. Whichcote, 

 Mr. Litchford Goodall, and two hounds, and presented to 

 Lord Forester by the gentlemen of the Belvoir Hunt on his 

 marriage." ^ 



^ Memoirs of the Belvoir Hounds, P- 95- ^ Ibid., p. 97. 



175 



