SOME YORKSHIRE AND WESTERN MIDLAND HUNTS. 1 87 



terribly long rides to covert on the Gloucester side, and one 

 extraordinary hunt, of which I have certain very vivid recol- 

 lections. It was towards the end of January, and there had 

 been a severe frost, the sort of frost which prompts Masters 

 to advertise " The first open day at the kennels." This 

 had been in the papers more than a week when the thaw began. 

 But the frost went slowly, and I rode at least twice to the 

 kennels before the Master thought it fit to hunt. Then there 

 came a day of sunshine, and hounds were taken to a not 

 very big woodland about twelve o'clock. There were only 

 seven or eight riders all told, and hounds were quickly away 

 with a fox, and ran to a gorse covert — Cowarne Gorse, if I 

 remember rightly — in the North Herefordshire country. Here 

 it was thought that we changed, but there was no delay, 

 and hounds ran on hard to Stoke Edith in the South 

 Herefordshire country. Here the Master tried to stop them, 

 a.& it wasi getting late and hounds were a long way from home 

 and the going dangerous. But it was one of those days of 

 burning scent, and hounds would not be denied. In fact, they 

 " got away on us," as they say in Ireland, and ran right to 

 the river Wye, where they killed their fox quite close to Holme 

 Lacy. This was a great hunt, and only the Master, the late 

 Dr. Sheward, of Malvern Wells, and I were ever in it after 

 the first quarter of an hour, and we all lasted to the end. The 

 pace was fastest in the middle, and slowest in the last hour; 

 but even then it was impossible on tired horses to get near 

 enough to stop hounds, who were beating us all day. We did 

 manage to keep them in sight, and at times were on good terms 

 with them for quite a long period; but we lost them momen- 

 tarily at Stoke Edith, and were put right out by some wag- 

 goners, who shouted like maniacs. What the exact point of 

 this hunt was I have never been able to determine, because 

 I am not sure where the hunt commenced. I have thought 

 at times it was Bosbury Wood, but then, again, I have an idea 

 that it was a smaller spinney quite close to Ledbury. An}-- 

 how, it was one of the three or four greatest hunts I ever saw, 

 and thirty years after Mr. Morrtll tcld ' me that it was the 

 longest hunt he was ever in during his mastership, either of 

 the Ledbury, the Worcestershire, or the South Oxfordshire. 

 Early in this hunt Mr. Morrell and I both came down through 



