no HUNTING IN MANY COUNTRIES. 



rabbit holes in aii open field on High. Shilford Farm. This 

 was the second check, and hounds were quickly going again, 

 and ran down to the Tyne, where they were stopped when 

 about tO' cross the river, being, in fact, out on a. gravel bed 

 when they were reached. It was now nearly four o'clock, and 

 far too late for a foray into the Tynedale country, even with 

 such a wonderful scent as this was. Hounds had made a nine- 

 mile point, had never been in covert except twice for a few 

 minutes when crossing the Duke's Rush and Fotherly Gill, 

 and the field had fined down to nine, three of whom were 

 ladies. Personally, I have good reason to remember this run, 

 for just before the finish I had ai most, lucky escape from all 

 sorts of dangers. After leaving Fotherly Gill I was alone on 

 the left of hounds. Across one of these fields runs a small 

 open brook, and this had been swollen by a. recent thaw, and 

 as I was crossing it the ground gave way, and a moment later 

 I was on my back in the stream with the water coming 

 over my face and my horse lying over my thighs and pinning 

 me down. I could not move, and was on the point of being 

 choked by the water when the horse rolled over and got up 

 without touching me, and all that I suffered from was being 

 wet through, with a ten-mile ride home in prospect. 



When it is intended to draw Chopwell hounds usually meet 

 at Armonside or Lintz Ford, but, as I have explained, the 

 covert may also be the aftemooai draw from the Low Spen, or 

 even from a. Long Close Gate (on the south of the river) meet. 

 Wilds Hill, a forty-acre plantation just east, of Chopwell, is 

 an occasional find, buti the best and mosti sporting covert in this 

 locality is Spen Bank, which has a lengthy gill to the north. 

 Spen Bank has all sorts of lying except heather, and faces 

 south, while the greater part of it is very dry. But its chief 

 feature is that foxes leave it quickly and that there axe nice 

 riding lines on almost every side. Foxes generally go. eaiStwards 

 towards the Engine Wood, or, if not headed on the railway, 

 over the hill to Martins Wood and the Blaydon Burn coverts. 

 This heading ou the railway is the chief and only trouble 

 which there is about Spen Banks. At. the top of the covert 

 there is a colliery line, and when hounds draw the covert, the 

 miners take up a. position on the railway for the express 

 purpose of viewing a fox. If they (the miners) only keep 



