THE QUORN. 115 



the season of 1877-8. Summers was very patient, and on one 

 or two occasions, I know, kept to his fox, and hunted him past 

 coverts, which many would have jumped to the conclusion 

 that he had entered, and where they would to a certainty have 

 got on a fresh one. By this means good runs were secured, 

 instead of being spoilt. In the spring of 1878 Mr. Tailby 

 announced his intention to retire, as he had been master for two 

 and twenty years, and he thought it time such an onerous post 

 as Master of Hounds in High Leicestershire should be in the 

 hands of a younger man. 



On this some few covert owners agreed to allow the Quorn 

 to draw their coverts again before anything was said about the 

 Billesdon pack being continued, but the other landowners 

 and farmers in the country did not like the idea of giving up 

 their independence after having enjoyed it so long, and at least 

 two meetings were held, the first, with Sir Henry Halford in the 

 chair, when a committee was appointed to take steps for in- 

 ducing Sir Bache Cunard to hunt the country, and he, having 

 agreed to do so, purchased Mr. Tailby 's pack of bitches (the dog- 

 hounds were sold off seven years before, when the Cottesmore 

 country reclaimed that portion which had been lent to Mr. 

 Tailby) for, I believe, the sum of two thousand guineas ; and it 

 was decided to build new kennels at Medbourne, a much more 

 central position than Billesdon. However, the Quorn then claimed 

 the country by right, and Mr. Coupland said he should draw 

 those coverts which the owners had given him permission to 

 do, and at the present date the matter thus stands. Mr. Tailby, 

 in a letter to the "Sporting Gazette," dated April 16th, 1878, 

 distinctly says that he took the country because it was relin- 

 quished by the Quorn in Lord Stamford's time, and that the Quorn 

 refused to take back that portion which Sir Richard Sutton had 

 resigned to his son. On the other hand, it is argued that the 

 country was only lent, and can now be resumed ; and in that 

 case it was proposed to let Lord Ferrers have a slice on the other 

 side, enough to give him two more days a week, and build 



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