90 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



feed, and hunt a pack of hounds. He was a person highly- 

 educated, and a gentleman in manners, a good horseman, uni- 

 versally liked, rode well, and was followed for years by the 

 finest tenantry in England — all horsemen, all fox preservers, 

 and all good fellows. In 1816, Lord Yarhorough gave up the 

 hounds to his son, and at his request his old huntsman, Thomas 

 Smith, also resigned the horn to his son William, who, for the 

 last two seasons, had generally hunted the hounds, although the 

 old man at seventy-two rode as hard as ever. On this occasion 

 his lordship presented the old man with a handsome silver cup, 

 which was given by his grandson. Master Pelham, afterwards 

 second Earl of Yarhorough." 



" The late Lord Yarhorough, who was a great agriculturist, 

 very active in the House of Commons, and a great yachtsman, 

 died in 1862 ; and about that time W. Smith, who had been 

 in Ireland, resigned the post of huntsman after its being in the 

 family for something like one hundred and fifty years, and took 

 a farm on the estate; so that Lord Yarhorough, who, when 

 asked where he got such good tenants from, replied that he bred 

 them, might have added that he bred his huntsmen also. 

 Philip Tocock, from the Surrey Union, held the post a very 

 short time ; and Tom Smith, who resigned from ill-health, pre- 

 ceded Is^imrod Long, from Mr. Scratton's in Essex, and has well 

 kept up the reputation of the pack." 



As a hunting country the Brocklesby is certainly unique, and 

 perhaps an exact counterpart of it is to be found in no other 

 county in England. Situated in the north of Lincolnshire, it 

 is bounded by the sea and the river Humber, the Burton, and 

 the South Wold countries, Lord Gal way's joining them for a 

 little space on the east side. All the portions of it that I have 

 seen are thinly inhabited, and wild in the extreme, so that, in 

 one sense, it is exceedingly favourable to fox-hunting. There 

 are also large woodlands about Brocklesby and Limber which 

 will stand any amount of cub-hunting, and which can boast such 

 ridings as could nowhere else be seen save in Kockingham 



