156 COVERT-SIDE SKETCHES. 



grass of the Midlands did not enable them to bear the pressure 

 of the crowd of thrusters which they there found behind them, 

 and no doubt the quicker style of handling rendered necessary 

 through this also tended to upset them. However, during his 

 two years' mastership he showed them a couple of runs which 

 that fine sportsman who succeeded him as master, Mr. Greene, 

 of Roileston, thought very highly of, one being a two hours' 

 journey from the Coplow, with a kill at the end of it, on 

 January 20th, 1840 ; the other took place the next season, and 

 was thus entered in Mr. Greene's journal, December 9th, 1840: — 

 " The best run I ever saw ; ran from Thorpe Trussels to the 

 Spinney at Eolleston Brook, 52 minutes. From Halstead to 

 Rolleston, not a horse within half a mile of them ; twenty-two 

 couple and all up." From this it appears that Mr. Hodgson's 

 pack could do the trick when they had room. But he is only 

 another instance of the old saying, that 



All sorts of countries, all horses don't suit, 



What's a good country hunter miiy here prove a brute, 



applies to men as well as horses, and even to hounds. Each 

 has his peculiar arena whereon he performs best ; and, as I have 

 said, Osbaldeston was not Osbaldeston when off the grass, so 

 Tom Hodgson elsewhere was not the Tom Hodgson of Holder- 

 ness. 



Neither was Holderness the same without his influence, for 

 although a very good man succeeded him in Mr. Robert Yyner, 

 who had gained a name in Warwickshire, and as the author of 

 " Notitia Venatica," who hunted the hounds himself, the sport 

 was but indifferent, and the subscriptions fell off materially. 

 Mr. Yyner differed from Will Danby in thinking that hounds 

 ran best over Holderness when it was dry rather than wet, and 

 would only just show the impression of the ball of the fox's 

 pad. However, I should be inclined to throw in my lot with 

 the veteran AVill and his long experience, rather than Mr. 



