LOYAL GRANTHAM 



dence of Mr. Cecil Thorold, there lived a certain squire of 

 the old school, Mr. Litchford, who was rather a character in 

 many ways. 



The following letter to Cooper is too characteristic to be 

 missed : — 



"BooTHBY Hall, 



''March 29, 1862. 

 " Cooper, — 



" Let me beg of you not to come up to the Woods on 

 Monday from Little Ponton. I would go down on my knees 

 to you sooner than you should do so, for if you do, you will 

 put me in a higher feavor than I have been in all the time 

 of my illness. In the first place, the woods are in such a 

 state they are not fit for a horse to go into them, they are 

 more than leg deep, but up to the neck in many of the rides ; 

 the heavy rains having sent all the foxes into the woods, 

 they are all nicely settled in them, and if you come with the 

 hounds you will drive them out again, and then they will lay 

 their cubs up under some stack or hedge-row, and be sure to 

 get distroyed. Why not go at once for the School plots and 

 Heath Covers, and then if you kill a fox or two it will not 

 matter, but a Woodland fox we cannot spare, you know well 

 a good Boothby wood cub, in the cub-hunting season, to 

 be worth a dozen in the Heath Covers, for young hounds. I 

 hope and trust you will not think of coming. 



" I am happy to be able to inform you to-day, I am very 

 much better than I have been all the week, I hope and 

 trust with the assistance of God Almighty I shall soon be 

 restored to my usual good health again, and that you may 

 hear my old voice in my Great Wood making it ring again, 

 next cub-hunting season. I am glad to hear you have the 

 Humby bitch forward ; you will find her to have a first-rate 

 nose, and a good cry in chace, which I think two good quali- 

 fications for a fox hound to have. Hoping that Smart's dog 

 and Batesmun bitch may get over the distemper, and that 

 both of them will turn out well. And ever 



" Believe me to be a well breed old sportsman yet, 



"J. Litchford." 

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