102 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



We have seen a portrait of this celebrated hound at Brocklesby, 

 which is now unfortunately burnt all but the head, and can 

 quite endorse Will's dictum that he was "a beautiful little 

 short-legged dog," and it was a great day for Belvoir when he 

 crossed Lincolnshire to the duke's kennels, for even at the 

 present day Frank Gillard, who knows what is what as well as 

 any one, swears by the sort. 



The late Will Goodall ranked quite in the first class as a 

 huntsman, and probably no man ever earned a higher or better- 

 merited reputation in the vocation. He stood very high in the 

 estimation of Lord Henry Bentinck, certainly the best judge of 

 hunting matters of his day. He said of him, — 



" Goodall's chief aim was to get the hearts of his hounds. 

 He considered hounds should be treated like women — that they 

 would not bear to be hulHed, to be deceived, or neglected with 

 impunity. For this end he would not meddle with them in 

 their casts until they had done trying for themselves, and felt 

 the want of him. He paid them the compliment of going to 

 fetch them; he never deceived or neglected them ; he was con- 

 tinually cheering and making much of his hounds. If he was 

 compelled to disappoint them by roughly stopping them off a 

 sucking bitch or a dying fox at dark, you would see him, as 

 soon as he had got them stopped, jump off his horse, get into 

 the middle of his pack, and spend ten minutes in making friends 

 with them again. The result was, that the hounds were never 

 happy without him, and when lost would drive up through any 

 crowd of horsemen to get to him again, and it was very rare for 

 a single hound to be left out" {Baih/s Magazine, Feb., 1871). 



If the huntsman was good, so was the master, Lord George 

 Forester, who at this time had the management of the pack. 

 He was as fine a judge of a hound as any man in England, and 

 no better horseman ever crossed the Belvoir Yale, though he did 

 not fall in with the popular Leicestershire notion as regards over- 

 sized horses, but liked a short-legged one, as well bred as he 

 possibly could be got. Having taken the mastership because 



