70 HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



took us past Sherburn Towers, where, rather to our surprise, 

 we found that hounds had not moved off, and that a very 

 large field was still being entertained. We were hailed and 

 literally ordered to come in, and when someone ventured to 

 suggest to the Colonel that the day wasi wearing on, he replied 

 that we were certain to find in the whin, which was not a 

 couple of hundred yards from the house. This whin was 

 placed at the east end of Spen Bank Plantation, and has long 

 beein ploughed out, but at the time I am writing of — the spring 

 of 1884 — it was a nice covert. The move came at last, and 

 as we entered the field it hardly looked promising to see do/ens 

 of foot people all round the gorse. Hounds were being 

 trotted across the field between the covert and the house when 

 there came a halloa, and in a moment the pack were round 

 the whin and into the wood. But this they left again in a 

 moment, and fairly flew along the side of the hill to Nomian'p 

 Riding and Snook Hill, when they went left-handed over the 

 hill to the Brockwell Covert. This they did not enter, but 

 skirted the boundary fence, and then ran up the valley of 

 the Barlow Brook to Reely Mires. Thence they bent to the 

 right and went by Sealbum, Bucks Nook, and the Duke's 

 Hag, over a fine line of open country, to Hedley-on-the-Hill. 

 Wheeling left-handed here, they ran over Airy Hill and by 

 Ravenside to Milkwell Burn Wood, and going over the field 

 adjoining the wood, hounds were running in view, coursing 

 their fox, in fact, and though he found a rabbit hole in the 

 boundary fence, he was quickly got out and killed. This 

 was a fifty minutes' gallop over a fine, open country. There 

 was no check, and the pace was first-rate throughout. But I 

 have a sequel to tell, and first I may say the run was a good 

 deal talked about for long enough, for everyone had a good 

 start, and there was some rather tall riding, especially during 

 the first twenty minutes. Well, many years after, since Mr. 

 Priestman had the country, in fact, I was talking over certain 

 old hunts with Mr. Gray, jun., and I mentioned this par- 

 ticular run as being about the best thing I had ever seen in 

 the country. " Yes," he replied, " I arranged that hunt 

 well. The fact is, my father was very nervous that hounds 

 might not find. There was no reason for his doubts, for, as 

 you know, Spen Bank was always full of foxes, but I thought 



