MOORLAND GALLOPS— 187G. 61 



by Black Bess. Drencliing rain and high wind came on, and saved a sporting 

 fox's life. Hounds came home through Cheadle." 



This was one of the wild moorland runs we occasionally 

 get from the Dilhorn side of the country. Again we 

 crossed the precipitous Churnet Valley, and the last part 

 of the run was entirely in the bleak stone-wall country 

 usually hunted by the Dove Valley Harriers only. We 

 looked like killing our fox to a dead certainty, until a 

 violent storm came on and annihilated every atom of 

 scent. 



" April 5th, 1876. DilJiorn.—Foimd in Foxfield Wood. Ran him a ring or 

 two away to Kingsley, and killed him at Froghall. One hour and forty minutes. 

 The last day of the season." 



The writer has reason to remember this day, for he 

 got a nasty fall over timber, which might have had serious 

 consequences but for kindly and generous help from 

 brother sportsmen close at hand. The gate, the mare, and 

 the rider were all on the ground together, and all mixed, 

 the mare, thoroughly alarmed, struggling and kickino- 

 with all her might. If a certain gallant friend * (now, alas ! 

 no longer with us) had not come to the rescue with much 

 readiness and presence of mind, the writer might very 

 easily have been seriously, if not fatally, injured ; and yet 

 the mare was one of the best timber jumpers possible. 

 The writer took the hint, and for the future did not select 

 high timber for choice. 



The Dilhorn run of April 5 th was thus recorded in the 

 Field of the following week : 



" The last meet of the season was at Dilhorn Hall, the seat of Sir E. Buller, 

 when, after partaking of an excellent luncheon, we drew the adjacent coverts, 

 and found Reynard at Fox Fields. He gave us an excellent run of one hour 

 and forty minutes, and, after crossing the Churnet and the North Stafford Rail, 

 he was killed at Froghall. There can be no doubt he was the same fox we ran 

 from the same covert three weeks back, as he took us much the same line, but 

 was too hardly pressed to reach his point, the huntsman remarking, before 

 breaking him up, that his legs were so rigid he could not even bend them. 



" My intention in writing is not so much to offer an account of the run, as a 



* Colouel F. C. Manningham Buller, of the Coldsf reams. 



