THE SQUIRE OF ASWARBY 



you like to see them find ? ' Of course I said yes. Old Jim 

 Hill, knowing me, said, ' Come along with me,' and I did. 

 They found a fox, and had twenty-five minutes nearly, in 

 view all the way, and killed him. I got either seven or eight 

 regular spinners, and got up nearly as soon as any of them, 

 much to Mr. Dorrien's horror, when he came up and saw me 

 covered in dirt, and told me the horse was stone-blind, and I 

 ought to have gone home immediately they found. The 

 same year I rode a mare called Flirt over the moony while 

 she was resting in the brook of Grendon, and stopped the 

 hounds myself as they was rising Pounden Hill at eight 

 o'clock at night, every horse dead beat. I was riding second 

 horse for Ben Foot, and a precious good blowing up I got." 



In the letter dated January 2 1st, 1858, Goodall condoles 

 with Sir Thomas Whichcote on a nasty fall which had laid 

 him by, a fate which must sometimes befall those who ride 

 as straight and as hard as did the Squire of Aswarby. 



XIV 

 "Belvoir Kennels, 



^^ January 21^/, 1858. 

 " Honoured Sir, — 



" I beg to return you my warmest thanks for your very 

 kind letter, couched in terms so expressive of your heart, 

 when you lay with your broken bone in the grass field near 

 Folkingham, and which will for ever be remembered with 

 gratitude by me. I only wish I could have placed another 

 individual in your melancholy situation at the time, I don't 

 remember exactly when it was ; I only go by losing you all 

 at once, when they set to racing for Walcot. 



" Fox-hunting, as you very truly say, is very vexatious ; 

 and so is every other amusement, if we do give way to our 

 tempers. I often wish I could conquer mine ; it would indeed 

 be a victory. It often causes me much pain when I reflect 

 how the beautiful day hath been passed. But when rightly 

 carried out, there is no sport or pastime so conducive to 

 health, nor gives more tone to both body and soul, and al- 

 though you have been denied the pleasures of the chase so 



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