126 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



hear how, when the late Lord Lonsdale first had the country, in 

 the spring of 1871, I saw them go away from these same big 

 woods so quickly that many of the sharpest and best were left 

 behind, and crossing the grass to Morkery Wood, and by 

 Stocking Hall, gave us a regular twister up to Lord Gains- 

 borough's Park at Exton, over which hounds raced as if they 

 were running for blood, and then finally threw-up, when they 

 had passed its greensward, and lost their fox beyond it, after 

 as brilliant a gallop as one can well imagine. Strange to say, 

 the fox was picked up the next day, dead and stiff, a little 

 distance beyond where they lost him. Ten miles with scarcely 

 a check is not to be sneered at, even if a large woodland is the 

 starting-point. 



But I must hark back to the era when the Noel family 

 hunted this country, at a time, I suspect, anterior to, or at 

 least coeval with, the institution of fox-hounds at Brocklesby, 

 although, unfortunately, the records are not so well preserved 

 here, and we can ascertain little beyond the bare fact that fox- 

 hounds were here kept by them. The country was after this 

 hunted for fifty years by Lord Lonsdale, and he was celebrated 

 for the size and strength of his hounds. Sir Gilbert Heathcote 

 then had it, Lambert carrying the horn, and the well-known 

 Leicestershire rough-rider, Dick Christian, the grandfather of 

 Mr. Tailby's late huntsman, having, for a time at least, the 

 care of the stud. When Sir Gilbert Heathcote resigned, Lord 

 Lonsdale again took it in hand, and he was succeeded by 

 Sir Eichard Sutton, who left it to go to the Quorn in 1847, 

 after having shown but indifferent sport while here. Mr. 

 Henley Greaves was master for five years, and was followed 

 by Mr. Borrowes, who resigned in 1855, and the country was 

 then vacant for a short period ; but Sir John Trollope came 

 forward and purchased Mr. Drake's hounds to hunt it, Ben^^ 

 Goddard coming with them as huntsman. At the end of two 

 years Mr. Drake repurchased the hounds, and Sir John re- 

 signed. The next autumn saw him in harness again, having, 



