116 THE NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE HOUNDS. 



followers. Draycot Woods were, for a wonder, all drawn 

 blank, but exactly at three o'clock we found a straight- 

 necked old dog fox in Brindley's Wood, a small but capital 

 covert near Birchwood Park, and we soon saw we were in 

 for a good thing, as, without the slightest attempt to 

 linger or to twist, Reynard at once rattled off at a great 

 pace, skirting Fradswell Heath and Birchwood Park, round 

 by Chartley Castle, through Chartley Park, over the 

 Stafford and Uttoxeter Railway, by Anglesey Coppice, 

 and over a nice country to Blithfield Hall (Lord Bagot's), 

 where the fox ran close to the doors of the mansion, and 

 still on through the shrubberies and park for the open 

 country beyond. Blithbury was the next point gained, a 

 good twelve-mile point from the find, in an hour and 

 twenty minutes, and as nearly straight as possible. Here 

 there was a check, which enabled some of the lucky ones 

 to get their second horses ; but after a brief respite, the 

 gallant pack hit it ofl' again, and eventually they pulled 

 him down somewhere near Yoxall — right in the heart of 

 the Meynell country — after one of the grandest and 

 straightest runs ever witnessed. The present writer, 

 having only one horse out, and being, moreover, engaged 

 to dine out some distance from home, had to leave at 

 Blithbury, and, jogging home on a tired horse, in company 

 with Colonel Reginald BuUer (who long since, alas ! joined 

 the majority), remembers well how late he arrived at that 

 dinner-party, and how kindly he was excused by his host 

 and hostess when he told them of the day's sport, and of 

 his having to tear himself away before the finish. As he 

 did not persevere to the end, the writer will not presume 

 to distribute the honours, but he may safely say that no 

 one went much better than the two gallant Masters and 

 their huntsmen, Dickins and Leedham, though it may 

 be taken for granted, with such sportsmen out as Lord 

 Harrington, Lord Berkeley Paget, Captain Duncombe, 

 AV. S. Power, W. D. Fox, and others who might be named, 

 that neither Masters nor huntsmen had it all their own 

 way. The run altogether lasted nearly two hours, the 



