118 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



legs, retort, " Ah, tliey did not think so much ahout legs and 

 feet when I was born as you do now." Lord Monson held the 

 country until 1810, and then sold his hounds to Mr. Osbal- 

 deston for 800 guineas, and retired, the Squire commencing 

 the career as master of hounds, in which he was destined to 

 become so celebrated in the Burton country. He also hunted 

 part of the South Wold woodlands. So bothered was he at 

 first to get the foxes away from the Wragby woods, that it is - 

 said he stationed a man at the cross-ridings with a gun, to 

 pepper them as they passed. He lived in the Palace at Lin- 

 coln, and it was while in the Burton country that he pur- 

 chased the celebrated little mare, after seeing her jump a big 

 wall at the end of a very hard day, with which he challenged 

 to run any horse in England four miles across country. She 

 was only fourteen hands three inches in height, but wonder- 

 fully powerful. He here, as elsewhere, acted as his own hunts- 

 man, and showed capital sport, being assisted by his friend 

 Mr. John White. For five years Mr. Osbaldeston hunted the 

 Burton country, and then was succeeded by Mr. Assheton 

 Smith, who gave up the Quorn to go there, and a great many 

 of the Meltonians followed him, but found that the large drains 

 of the Burton country were worse to get over than the brooks 

 and ox-fences of the Quorn, and one by one they forsook him, 

 and went back to Leicestershire once more. It is related in 

 his life that no less than sixteen of them were floundering about 

 in, the Tilla at the same time, and Tom Smith was the only one 

 that got out on the right side. Sir David Baird and Sir Hariy 

 Goodricke were not to be shaken off, and stayed with him to the 

 end of the season. Mr. Smith hunted the Burton country with 

 his big hounds, bred pretty much from the sort of old John 

 Warde, which he had formerly very much ridiculed, and often 

 termed them John Warde's jackasses. 



Mr. Smith held the Burton country eight seasons, and then 

 Avas succeeded by Sir Eichard Sutton, who purchased the whole 

 establishment of him in 1822. Like his predecessor, he was 



