154 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



fences, and were, consequently, difficult to ride across. I have 

 not space to record half "Will Danby's curious runs while with 

 the Holderness, but I must quote one to show what confidence 

 he placed in his hounds : — 



" Some men were standing at the side of a covert, when they 

 saw a hare come out and go away. Almost immediately Levity, 

 a badger-pied bitch, by the Duke of Buccleuch's Lexicon, came 

 out and opened on the very line. On Will's coming up, those 

 who were standing there said, ' It's a hare ; we saw her go 

 away. You had better stop her.' * Yo, doit, Levity ! ' was 

 Will's answer ; and away she went, with Will getting the rest 

 of the pack forward to her. Not long afterwards they passed a 

 hedger. 'Seen the fox?' asked the unbelieving ones. 'No; 

 but a hare is just gone along the very line you're hunting.' 

 * There, Will ; stop them ! We told you it was a hare,' said the 

 same party. * Yo, doit. Levity !' was again the answer, as the 

 old bitch feathered on the line. They then settled down to run 

 hard, and at the end of fifty minutes pulled down a fine dog- 

 fox, to Will's intense delight, and the great chagrin of Levity's 

 detractors." 



It was during Mr. Hodgson's and Will's time that the Hol- 

 derness killed one fox in a thorn-tree, near Grandsmoor, when 

 Rutland got uj) a hurdle aud pulled him down, and another in 

 the sea, where he swam out until the hounds pulled him down, 

 and AYill rushed in, until the waves came over his head, to 

 secure his prize, and Lord Hawke said, " Give me a pad. Will ; 

 this is the finest sight I ever saw." They also had some hounds 

 go over in a run from Burton Agnes to the Spreeton Clifi's, 

 about four miles north of Flamborough Head. They fell a dis- 

 tance of two hundred feet, and only those which landed on a 

 piece of rock jutting out were saved. Ned Oxtoby, who was 

 bred at Hessle, and had acted as valet to Mr. Hodgson, but was 

 then whip, with a pluck rarely heard of, was let down over the 

 cliff in a basket, and brought up those that were alive ; and 

 when he was safely landed on the top they found there was 



